Coming Out
by Spitty-Chan
Summary: The choices you make at the start can affect the end in so many ways, even the smallest detail can have the biggest impact. Choose to grow and expand with others is key. Hiccup and Astrid's own little things can change the world,themselves and maybe even each other. A fic about sexuality and growing up . Slow burn F/F hiccstrid loosely following HTTYD1-RTTE.
1. Axes and dragons (1) Redux

Chapter One: Axes and Dragons

She had been working in Gobbers forge every day since she was 16. It was a good viking occupation, making and fixing their weapons of war. A way to build up muscles and to earn the respect of others. The compact building contained a small living area for her in the back while the main room was stacked with weapons, various tools for shaping and sharpening, and a large forge dominating the center.

The scrawny brunette had a small baby face bedecked with freckles. Despite her keen mind, skill for design, and a knack for fixing things, she was treated as a runt by the other vikings. And while the other teens were entering puberty, it very much felt like she was once again going to be left behind.

Regardless, she was self assured that as long as she could outthink the others and make things, she would be reasonably okay. It was a pity that she sucked at everything else. Fighting, eating or drinking.. Which was, unfortunately, covered everything the other vikings did.

She had run away from her father after another argument so she went to where she most felt welcome, at the forge and away from people.

She didn't enjoy fighting with him but it felt like the chief of Berk never listened to her. It was so frustrating and annoying that they could hardly get least in the forge it was just her and sometimes Gobber. Here she could work on things in peace and get away from the daily dangers of life.

A few minutes ago they had had a short conversation about her dad not wanting to play favorites so she shouldn't ever take anything he said to heart, despite the fact that all they ever did was argue in public. Hell, she wouldn't even know the guy was a parent if they didn't eat together and sleep in the same house.

Hiccup turns an axe head around, studying the blade and running it against a grinder a few more times. Once it made the appropriate noise and look to be sparking properly, she would put it near a handle and wait for Gobber to attach the two together. Although he only had one hand, he was still vastly stronger than she was. Not to mention his immense bulk and stature meant he'd hit his head on the door many a time, much to her amusement.

Engrossed In her work, she doesn't notice that the blacksmith in question came in. A sly grin on his face.

"How's it going with the boy's? A girl like you should be looking to get married sooner rather than later." He muses as he attaches an axe head and handle together.

Hiccup pauses for a moment, she doesn't really like any of the boys of her age or has the desire to marry or go anywhere near them. Snotlout was her cousin and she was pretty sure that they were not desperate enough in the gene pool to let "that" happen. Besides, she couldn't stand his revolting humor anyway at the rare family dinners.

Tuffnut is insane full stop. While he had a pretty decent face and blonde hair, and is much taller than her, his choice of outfit and fishy smell left too much to desired. And she was pretty sure his personality would drive her to an unpleasant cliff dive!

Fishlegs, extremely large. Blonde and nerdy. A geek like her. While he would be okay to live with she also knew that they were interested in different things and she didn't really feel anything for him. And while they were somewhat friends she did not appreciate his ability to randomly spew out facts about dragons.

"I don't like any of the boys here," she grunted and gives a shrug while returning to her axe, the heat of the forge making her a little uncomfortable with a dew of sweat broke out across her forehead.

"And? Just pick either the manliest or the least annoying one. It's what I would do." Gobber shrugs back while sharpening a sword he forged earlier that day.

Her mind flashes to Astrid, one of the other girls. Gorgeous with amazing blond hair and piercing blue eyes, strong and forceful.

Her mouth gets a little dry and she shifts to the side.

"Astrid is the manliest one."

Crap. She shouldn't open her mouth before thinking.

"Ha! Good joke Hiccup. Right true that is. Pity she's not a boy though". Gobber snorts and pats her on the back a little too heavily. Thankfully he thought it was a joke and that he didn't notice the reddening on her cheeks.

The thought of Astrid had made her fidget last night. Although she knew that Astrid did not like her. If Hiccup was on fire and Astrid had the only bucket in town she would wait for another fire to set.

The door to the forge opens and a familiar blonde viking with long hair and an axe comes in.

Hiccup's fidgeting redoubled.

She has to say something, anything. As Astrid comes closer with her axe, her powerful movements displaying her toned muscles.

"Hey there, welcome to our outfit. Do you need anything?" She manages to say in her calmest and controlled voice.

Astrid shrugs and levels out her axe and then switches to holding it with one hand, her dexterity has gotten good and it was really really showing right now.

"Hey. Can I get this axe sharpened, please?".

"Sure!" Hiccup answers and holds her hands out, the other girl responds by simply dropping her axe into her hands causing the smith's apprentice to stagger under the weight.

She steadies herself on a nearby grindstone before getting to work and clear the dirty, non-viking thoughts out of her head. She shouldn't be having them at all. She should be thinking about boys.

Gobber levered himself up, "I'll leave you two girls to your gabbing.

Astrid begins wandering around looking at the various weapons on display. To Hiccups credit most of the items were of her creation with Gobber simply attaching or forging the pieces that she couldn't.

Focusing on the heat of the forge in hopes of ignoring the heat of her face, she began examining the ax more closely. The blade was a bit worn down and a couple of chips marred the edge but it was functional and should be okay for a couple of more hundred swings at trees; a favorite past time of Astrid's.

Said girl lets out a grunt, Hiccup looks over to see the azure clad, spiky teen bending over just enough to show off that curve of her ass.

The moment of inattention caused her to snap the axe head clean off. Her cheeks fully red with the dirty thoughts filling her mind.

She lets out a panicked squeak, quickly swapping the ruined handle for another and burying her head against the sparking axe as close as she can so the other girl can't see her face.

Hiccup grimaces, knowing that she'll have to repair the axe head as well.

Astrid was too absorbed in looking at greatswords to notice that Hiccups face had gone as bright red as the forge fire. Peering over at each of the weapons, she was resisting the urge to simply take them off the wall and wield them in glorious battle against Berks enemies. At 16 years old, Astrid would soon enter dragon training and she knows that she'll get top place. As a member of the Hofferson clan: a family famed for its shield maidens she knew that she will do her house proud.

Glancing over at the loud snap of the axe and its handle with a narrowed eyebrow.

"You didn't damage my axe did you? My mother handed that down to me"

"No I rebalanced and repaired it, it uh needed a new handle as the wood was near splintering condition" The Brunette responds back and Astrid goes back to looking around the forge, she didn't go in much as she's a warrior and not a blacksmith and she is a big believer of everything being in its place.

Letting Hiccup to work on her axe, she follows a line of better quality weapons to a small door off to the side and opens it, her curiosity getting the better of her as she hears the other girl protesting about it.

"What is all of this?" She muses, a little impressed at what she finds. The room, Hiccup's presumably judging by her frantic attempts to drive her away, is stocked with drawings of weapons, posters and art wallpaper with a few small cloth pads in on a desk.

The cloth pads is the only thing she recognizes.

"It's uh a confidential place of upper level development" Hiccup stammers and brushes past as she quickly tucks the pads into a pocket.

"Of what exactly?" Astrid asks, brushing a hand over an extremely well detailed portrait of the interior of Berks stone town hall.

"Weapons! And things!"

"I see".

An image of a wheelbarrow with a tree trunk on the desk catches her eye and she lifts up one end of it. Astrid isn't sure of what to make of it and gestures over to Hiccup to explain.

"It's a bola thrower that uses twin levels as counterweights tha~"

"The mutilator right?" Saying the name of the weapon out loud stops Hiccup and she nods.

Astrid notes that the only time Hiccup hasn't been awkward or stammering is when she's talking about the thing she makes or is going to.

At the very least she feels pretty impressed by the amount of detail gone into it. It does make some sense that given the apprentice blacksmiths lack of strength and dexterity when it came to handling weapons she would instead make weapons that could compensate for her weakness.

"I like it." The Valkyrie gives a soft smile as she turns around and compliments Hiccup. While she's more of a throw-it-at-your-face girl, seeing a little bit of inside Hiccups head allows her to properly gauge the girl and she can at least respect what she's been trying to do.

It could have gone worse for Hiccup, much worse. At the very least Astrid seemed to be a little impressed by her work and drawings before they had parted ways. She had given the blonde girl her axe and explained that the reinforcement and new handle should hold it up for a couple of months and if anything went wrong she should come back to get it checked.

In all honesty it was the first proper conversation they had had in years and Hiccup dared to feel a little better about it.

Until the Dragons decided to blow off the door to the outhouse she was in. Dragon raids always happened during the evening when it was dark.

Hiccup ran through the village, the calls and cries of the battle ready villagers screaming at her to get inside or telling her to stay out of the way. She's used to what they say at this point given that her inventions so far have had a nasty habit of turning on the village, but she knew that it was only when there was a minor mistake or a flawed calibration.

During a raid her place was in the forge and so she ran to it. The hoisted torches of Berk lighting the way as she dodged the hordes of Vikings running to the defenses, a burning house or two blocking her way until she bumps into the huge frame of her father, Stoick the Vast. A veritable mountain with arms and a booming voice.

"Get yourself inside, girl!"

Eventually she gets to the forge where Gobber is at the shop front taking in orders for new weapons and passing out freshly forged or repaired ones to the waiting villagers, he spots Hiccup and waves to her, mouthing that she's going to take over while he fights the dragons with the rest of the vikings.

She has no such intention of staying inside, not this time. The mutilator is primed, ready and, she made her calibrations earlier in the week, she will shoot down a dragon and prove that she's viking material. Prove to her dad that she doesn't need to get married to be a successful chief.

Quietly, she also wants to prove to Astrid that she's just as strong as everyone else.

Taking advantage of a massive fireball launched by a Monstrous Nightmare into a barrel of vegetables she runs inside her room and carts her bola thrower out, it's a short stubby thing with multiple levers and gears kind of like a small catapult but with a tube. She runs through her practice safety check and makes sure that its ready, it is.

After wheeling it and dodging through multiple vikings and dragons again she needs to find a spot and park it up near the edge of the village to give her maximum visibility and a place away from everyone else so the Mutilator won't accidentally throw someone through a wall, again. Eventually she locates a parking spot, one that is next to a cliff and she can feel the cold sea air from the stacks batter through her thin green tunic and ruffle her short brown hair.

Scanning the sky, she looks for a target. A Deadly Nadder of the sharp class with its beautiful hide and multiple spikes would do. Or a super hot Nightmare with a long snout and hook like appendages on its face would really bring praise to her for once.

Or a Night Fury, something that nobody has ever seen except for the whistling sound it makes while diving! Or the purple plasma blasts that never miss!

She only has one shot though and to the left of her a catapult placement explodes in a purple blast.

"I can see it!" Hiccup shouts and adjusts the firing mechanism, the gears in her head turning as she spots the cold black shape of a Night Fury preparing for another attack. She knows the height and direction it's going to fly in and all she has to do is fire when the time is right.

The chief's daughter notices the black wings of the Night Fury reflect off the fires of the machine it just destroyed in the corner of her eye and she wrenches the Mutilator to the left just in time.

She fires, throwing the weights hit it and a loud screech comes out as it flies erratically off distance to the opposite end of Berk.

Elation runs through her body as she actually hit something!

"YES I HIT IT, I HIT A DRAGON, I HIT A DRAAAGON"

Hiccup rubs her hands together with glee and looks around to see if there were any onlookers towards her amazing kill.

"Did anybody see that?".

Suddenly, a Monstrous Nightmare has crawled up the cliff behind her and it simply throws the Mutilator out of the way as Hiccup turns around in shock to see the huge reptile staring at her.

"Crap"

The freckle faced teen runs as fast as she can with the Nightmare right behind her, chomping and snarling as she traces her way back through the village screaming loudly for help or at least someone who can actually fight dragons with an axe. Thankfully the burning houses and the torches the villagers put up give ample lighting for her to see where she's going or it would be pitch black.

Eventually she reaches an open clearing. The Nightmare leaps down from a building, priming its breathe and it lets loose a red hot blast at her feet. Fortunately Hiccup manages to dodge out of the way and she desperately searches for something to hide behind before she ends up as a lean steak..

She finds a wooden pole holding a torch and hides behind it, her heart pounding as she crouches to make herself as small as possible, shivering a bit in fear. She really doesn't want to be eaten, not now that she's actually shot down a dragon. The scent of charred wood fills the air around her.

It goes quiet for a few seconds and Hiccup sighs in relief, believing that the Nightmare lost her. Getting up and peering round to her left its only when a short feel of hot air on her neck does she realize that the dragon is peeking at her from the right. She screams again and before it can either eat or cook her a massive axe with an ear bellowing war cry hits the reptile in the face.

Its Stoick the Vast and he doesn't look too pleased to see her.

Stoick closes the door to his house, the chief of Berks house after a long night of island politics, fighting dragons, damage control and another argument with his daughter. Slumping into a nearby chair overlooking his bed at the ground floor of the house he reaches for a bottle of mead, opening it and downing half the bottle in a single go.

Stoick slumps back on his chair and mentally goes over the events of the day, all the way from his morning awkward breakfast with Hiccup to him saving her from a dragon only to see the torch she had been hiding behind fall over and destroy a valuable well.

They had a very public argument after that with the chief lifting his daughter up by the shoulder and screaming in her face as to why she wasn't inside and safe. She replied with tears in her eyes that she had shot down a Night Fury and it had landed in Raven Point, that she was a true dragon fighter and that killing was in her blood. He told her that she was just seeing things and should go home after a near death experience and to leave fighting to the adults such as himself.

He can remember the light of the collapsed torch reflecting off her wild brown hair and as she continued to defend her case he was struck by an image of Valka, his dead wife taken by a dragon. For a second all he could remember was Valka telling him to protect their daughter no matter the cost.

He had simply picked up his only remaining family member as she screamed and taken her home in front of hundreds of onlookers, including her peers, before going back outside to assess the damage of the latest raid.

Now he was alone in his house, Hiccup was sleeping upstairs having locked her room. He was 45 and Stoick was starting to get tired of their dysfunctional relationship. Part of him wanted to go back in time and ask for a son like himself so he wouldn't have this problem. A good strong lad who had the same mindset: ideal chief material.

Then again, chief material means getting married and he doesn't want that to happen much either. None of the families on Berk have expressed an interest in purchasing Hiccups dowry, even at a generous price as they claimed she was unsuitable. And while he was reasonably confident the other chiefs in the archipelago would make an offer soon and undoubtedly make Berk richer with a fresh alliance and more trade, that would mean Hiccup leaving him and on her own to the mercy of whatever island of the boy she ends up with.

Chief Stoick wants Berk to be safe at all costs. But Father Stoick needs the opposite: a happy and fruitful Hiccup. He desperately wants the two to be compatible but he can't see a compromise or even a way out of it.

He has tried to talk to her about it, sitting down at the table during breakfast or dinner. But every time she's either been late, didn't eat or was just unwilling to talk with a scowl on her face. And even on the rare occasion they did talk, it was always an argument with neither side willing to budge; Hiccup calling her father an oaf and Stoick telling his daughter she needed to be more traditional.

Stoick finishes the bottle of mead, letting his shoulders and muscle relax after the adrenaline filled fight , he glances around the room. His immense bulk taking up the entire chair and his house isn't that well decorated for a chief. Its fit for purpose with only a dining table and chairs with a few drawers being elaborate in any way. Well his part of the house is. He has been in Hiccups room and her attic position was always filled with drawings and sketches: beautiful ones and others that were mechanical. Items of her design that he couldn't get his head around.

He knew that his daughter sometimes unleashed those drawings into practice: building a wide variety of engineering marvels that were impressive on paper but never really worked; often ending up simply failing or causing damage to the village and he was planning to enact a ban on them. Hiccup was good at making weapons for vikings, very good ones in fact and she had been complimented for crafting axes that never failed.

He wants her to keep to that. To be in a respectable position amongst the community and to replace Gobber when the old man, his best friend, finally retires.

It would be so much easier if she was a boy, then they could relate and talk about "man" things.

He had to be told what to expect from a daughter as Valka was gone. One of the village elders had pulled him aside when he opened Hiccups bed sheets that morning and started screaming when he found blood. The elder briefed him on what to expect from raising a daughter: bloody sheets, irritability and mood swings at a certain time every month. And his Hiccup went from being a quiet girl to a raging demon who didn't take advice from anyone.

Stoick the Vast gets off his chair and going to bed, wishing that his wife was there to handle their rogue daughter.

After all, Valka was the same when she was growing up.

Astrid Hofferson curls up on her bed, fists balled and she needs to either punch or throw an axe at something, anything. Her blood boils and she tightly grabs a pillow with one hand and stabs it with the other.

She can't think or anything other than what happened just a few moments ago. Her parents had come in late after a discussion with the chief and she had gotten out of bed and had lain on the floorboards with the door to the downstairs cracked open a tad to listen to their conversation. She wished she hadn't listened.

While they had initially started talking about "that Hiccup girl" and how she had gone a step too far in destroying yet another part of the village, the discussion had taken an unpleasant twist as her father spoke in hushed tones about how other clans in Berk had offered him an extremely lucrative price for his daughter. Allegedly Astrid was in high demand and Snotlout Jorgenson had pleaded with his parents to offer twice as much as any other family.

Her mother retorted with how much she had wanted to be a shield maiden but her dad simply remarked that if Freydis had become one, Astrid and her little sister would have never been born and added that due to the Hofferson family tradition, they were low in numbers. And should a dragon attack killed him and his wife with Astrid being a shield maiden then they would go extinct.

Upon hearing those words the 16 year old had retreated into her bed and cried.

"How dare they! They should not determine my future, only I will" She quietly makes a promise to herself that since dragon training starts in a few days she should use all of the skills she has acquired to place #1 in the class and prove that her warrior skills will force her parents and Berk to acknowledge that she is more than worthy of becoming a shield maiden.

Calming down a little and steeling herself for the near future, Astrid Hofferson falls asleep with her mothers axe close by.

With thanks to the following people.  
Kayda-Starr (beta reader)

Proof readers  
Ginkisune, Fopdoodle, MidnightBurst, ASATanker

Tags imported from Archive Of Our Own

Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Astrid Hofferson Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon) Stoick the Vast Alternate Universe Hiccstrid - Freeform Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson Fluff f/f - Freeform fastrid/fhiccup Sexuality Growing Up dagur enjoys killing people hiccup and astrid swear

F/F Graphic violence, sex and major character death!


	2. Downed and In (2)

Downed and in.  
~~

First thing that happened when HIccup woke up was that she encountered her father. Within five minutes they had had another earth splitting argument about the official ban of her crafting anything that wasn't "viking like". She barely had time to get dressed too.

He told her that she would "be more respected and liked amongst the community if she had a solid and good job" . That Hiccups weapons were reliable and well thought of around the village, that being a sentence she never thought she would hear, not being able to make things she wanted pushed her over the edge.

She had screamed at her dad, grabbed her dagger, a notebook,and pencil before storming out of the house without stopping to eat.

Fists balled and panting in frustration at Stoicks inability to listen to her, Hiccup was sure that, while she looked funny to the other vikings she ran past, at this moment she really didn't give a damn. She had drawn the predicted flight path of the downed Night Fury and gods-damn-it she would find it, draw it to prove it to prove her claim, then kill would bring back its head and heart on a spike, proving to Berk, Stoick and maybe Astrid that she was every bit as good as the rest of them.

She found the way out of the village and headed in the vast expanse of Berks uninhabited, lush forest, intending to scout the area and find the dragon.

Hiccup had spent the night slowly twisting her dagger around in the air, imagining what she would do to it. What little sleep she had came in bursts equally of nightmares of her dysfunctional relationship with the Chief of Berk and dreams of very intimate scenes with a Valkyrie. Bunched up they made no sense and came together in fleeting memories of last night that equally terrified, angered and aroused her mind and body.

Hostile, horny, and hungry, the scrawny brunette begins to comb the forest over and vowing she wasn't going to come back until she had proof.

Hours later, she had given up on trying to find the dragon. It was like it had just disappeared from Berk and she was at her wits end. Everything that happened yesterday and today was a complete failure and she had lost her last shot to gaining any recognition of being a true viking and dragon killer.

Tensing up she grimaces and tries not to let it out, instead slashing a frustrated line across her notebook where she had marked dozens of little Xs showing where she thought it would be. Hiccup had lost an entire dragon and now was certain the gods hated her.

Walking aimlessly she can only think about what a waste of time this had been having missed her morning shift at the forge, which was the most important time after a dragon attack. Gobber and Stoick would ask her where she had gone and she would have to make up and excuse. Hiccup had gone "searching for a dragon" too many times and this was the last straw.

Lost in her thoughts she almost stumbles over a ravine, barely managing to catch herself by clinging to a rock.

Looking back she notices the wide parting in the dirt, the mark of a crash landing. Trees with scorched bases and snapped branches lying on damaged grass.

She wasn't angry anymore, she was terrified, her mind had already worked out where her dragon was from the faint snoring only a few meters(feet) below her.

_The fusion of death and lightning is only a few meters away from her and she's going to die._

Slowly turning her head to the side in fear, and trying her hardest to stop breathing so her fiercely beating heart wouldn't betray her position, she feels a faint whistle of wind flows through her hair and tight clothes as she sees the black shape in the ravine.

Appearing to be all tangled up in ropes from her launched bola and likely forced to unconscious by its injuries and the hard landing.

It struck her that she's looking at the first Night Fury ever seen in daylight and as far as Hiccup can recall. No one had seen one before except for a faint shadow during a moon lit night.

Loosening her hold on the rock, she finds a place to perch and opens her notebook to a new page. She's going to go down in history with this sketch! The sheer excitement at making such a achievement compels her to draw its jet-black scales, the sharp angular torso and head with the protruding nubs and tendrils in exacting detail.

From her angle above, directly looking down on it Hiccup can see how it's never been seen before: its entire body is made for speed. The softly rising wings, constrain by the rope, can be tucked in for a dive and the short body with the long tail and the two secondary wings are made for rapid control. She's never seen another dragon with a twintail, or four paws.

Well one secondary wing, she can see that's how it got shot down. Her bola must have ripped one of them off.

Hiccup finishes her drawing, noting it could be better had the time. . Her empty stomach rumbles which she ignores as she finds a safe path down to the ravine; confident that the dragon is either so badly wounded its sleeping or the ropes will keep it held down.

Or both hopefully.

"Oh wow I did it, this fixes everything!" She begins fist pumping and then hugging herself with a gleeful joy. Drawing what she shot down is one thing but being so close to it is another entirely. Hiccup stands almost on top of the Night Fury, picking out individual scales with a art's eye.

She pulls out her dagger and makes her move. "I'm going to kill you dragon" She whispers softly to herself as she plants a foot on its forepaw. She wants to, no _has to kill it._ Everyone will forgive her for what she'd done. She'll be known as Hiccup the Fury and not Hiccup the Useless.

"I'm going to cut out your heart and take it to my father, then I'll mount your head on my wall". Raising her weapon and preparing to plunge it beneath its black scale she steels herself and grimaces. Part of her actually doesn't want to do this: it's a beautiful creature and a tiny little voice is regretting this ever happened but she knows she **has **to do this.

Expelling the air from her lungs and bellowing a silent viking war cry she prepares to lunge forward.

Only to be stopped by a green eye, just like hers and full of fear peering from below a previously closed eyelid.

Its afraid she's going to kill it.

"STOP LOOKING AT ME, I AM A VIKING" She screams at it and the dragon rolls its eyes back, accepting its fates, its trapped and useless.

Useless.

Just like her.

Hiccup pauses for a second and makes a decision: she can't actually kill it. She's never been able to end any things life. Even when she was six she bought a fox home with a arrow stuck in its leg. It died and her father asked why there was a dead animal in her room. She replied she wanted a pet and he had laughed.

She can't do this and raises her foot off the Night Fury's limb.

But if she simply walks away someone else will find it and no doubts they will finish the job.

A few minutes later, she had almost cut the ropes. the dragon was so deathly silent, it might have actually died and there was some part of her that wished it had so she could still take credit. But a decision was a decision. She would cut the ropes, it would fly off and then she would cross the perilous bridge of going back home.

One problem at a time.

Crouching down and slowly severing the last rope holding the Night Furys forelimb as it breaths soft, steady breaths. She pulls the ropes clear and gets up, her boots and the bottom of her trousers muddy. She'll have to explain it, but it doesn't matter. The dragon can fly away, go away and never come back.

She turns her back and puts the dagger back in a sheath in her too short coat which which leaves a sliver of her thin stomach be seen. Fortunately it's not a bigger gap or anyone could see her ribcage. And Hiccup really doesn't want to have that conversation about not eating enough again: she's lightheaded as it is.

The chief's daughter gets started on the climb back up the hill, her mind now blanking out the sound of the wildlife and forest around her as she focuses on the excuses she'll tell her pseudo uncle Gober and her father.

Consequently, she doesn't notice the gradual silence descended on the area around her, birds flying away and those on the ground falling silent as a predator emerges.

It's chains removed, the Night Fury slinks stealthily over to the lone paws making soft footfalls in the ground as it looks over at its mangled tail, rage rising at being shut down and rendered useless.

Hiccup turns around, the hair on the back of her neck standing up as she stares right into the face of an angry dragon with teeth the size of her fists. It pins her down with ease under a single paw. The claws sliding out to ripping through the fabric of her thin clothes while the girls back is coated with dirt and leaves. The jet black mouth opens wide above slitted eyes as it roars in her face.

All she can think of is the terrible mistake that she's made meaning that she will die right here and with no help. Hiccups heart thuds hard in her chest and her body is fully geared towards flight. But she can't go anywhere. Not with the dragon pinning her down ready to take the first bite.

She whimpers loudly., Trying vanely to kick her feet against the tough, unyielding scales of the much larger Night Fury. It's terrifying to look at yet closing her eyes doesn't help. Its breath blanketing her body as it stares at her.

Now, with their roles reversed, Hiccup's fearful expression gives the dragon pause as would be valkyrie pants and swears in terror. The reptiles ear like appendages, flattened before, become erect as it simply narrows its gaze as is thinking.

It then stabs the girls body with its nose and sniffs before giving a silent roar and bounding off into the distance. Hiccup doesn't even process why she isn't dead and simply runs to Berk as fast as she can, nearly hyperventilating and having wet herself a little.

Astrid's reforged and rebalanced axe has proven itself having almost snapping a tree in half after repeated hits. She has to admit that Hiccup can make a mean weapon and she makes a note to thank her.

Today's training was good, another mental note gets added to the growing file in her head of the many swings and throws she can perform before getting tired as the number only increases with enthusiasm every day.

Her mother's double headed axe still quite right in her hands. It is her parents after all and she feels that she might want to request a new one after dragon training. The conversation with Hiccup had gone last night and if she tries hard enough, she should be on good ground for a custom made one built for throwing and close combat both.

Then again, a lot of her clothes could use improvement or even be replaced. She's made sure to stick to a strict training regime combined with good diet for maximum muscle and the least fat possible. Because of this, she is slowly starting to outgrow her old battle skirt with spikes and the green sleeveless shirt she's worn since she was 12. Both are worn with age and hard use.

It's nearly sundown when she comes back from Berk, having trained in its lush forest using the plentiful trees as targets. Her kransen had to be readjusted to clear sweet-drench hair from her eyes.

With the axe slung over a shoulder and a loose confident gate, she strides into Berks great stone hall carved into a mountainside to protect it from dragons and filled with enough tables to fit the entire village of a thousand or so vikings.

Some of the citizens are out on patrol for dragons while others performing menial jobs such as fishing,washing and repairing. But most of the village is just eating; mutton and fish are in plentiful supply with traders regularly bringing in fruit and vegetables from within and sometimes beyond the archipelago.

The blonde valkyrie who was already being courted by potential suitors quickly finds a table that her social group occupies off to the back of the main seating. The area is commonly reserved for youngsters and those who haven't passed dragon training. A hurtle she is swiftly planning to overcome. Ruffnutt and Tuffuot, an inseparable pair of blonde twins, are having a heated argument regarding utility of lacing chickens with milk and using them as puke projectiles against dragons.

She grins at them and sits down a short distance from Snoutlout Jorgenson; who has no idea that she knows he's been trying to court her. She rests her elbows on the wooden table and reaching over for a untouched leg of sheep.

"So, whats up?" She queries.

Snoutlout is the first one to respond, a grin quickly filling his face and he moves to put a arm around Astrid which is quickly batted away.

"Just thinking about you, beautiful".

"Uh hu, I wasn't". She narrows a eyebrow and bites into the leg again, suddenly hungry after a days training and then she decides to crack her shoulder for good measure.

"Have you guys heard about Dragon Training? It's supposed to start soon and I can't wait to see the Gronckle with its defense of 16 and jaw strength 8, how about the Monstrous Nightmare with a firepower of 15!" Fishlegs butts in, his enormous hand waving a copy of the book of dragons around as he gets visibly excited at the mere mention of dragons, even mentioning on his own.

"Wait Dragon Training? Really? Isn't it only supposed to start with the last raid and the onset of winter?"

"Tuff you idiot, that was the last raid and haven't you seen the trees dying yet?".

The twins, momentarily distracted from their bickering slink over to Fishlegs and start bombarding him from either side with questions regarding all of the reptiles from the book and how he knows so much about them.

Astrid shrugs and leaves the three blonde teenagers to it, placing her axe on the floor before quietly munching on a branch of berries while doing her best in ignoring Snotlouts increasingly obnoxious questions regarding her maidenhood and how much he's prepared to give for her bride price.

Normally she would sock him in the jaw and tell him to shut the fuck up but she's too focused on the upcoming months. She was going to do well in the dragon arena, she's going to train harder everyday and then as a shieldmaiden Astrid Hofferson will be free of marriage and to pursue her goal as one of Berks greatest warriors, maybe even a rival to Stoick the Vast himself.

She has her dreams and the will to complete them. Then she can ignore whatever Snotlout wants, simply nod and let Fishlegs run away with his dragon obsession and stand by and let the twins do whatever they do.

She does however notice a slight chill in the air as Gobber quietly thrusts Hiccup into the hall and her ears pick up him telling the "toothpick to eat something before she faints and that she's going to need to head back to the forge after a meal to make something special".

Astrid watches the tiny brunette slink between masses of laughing adults and she seems to actively avoid the bright lit areas and sticks to the pillars instead before eventually sitting in a chair next to the vacant throne of the chief in the front of the hall.

Her perceptive gaze examines the other girls body, her normally bright green vest is torn and ripped with branches and some very interesting claw marks are laced deep into the fabric.

Hiccups freckled face is abnormally pale too with a green leaf sitting in her hair and Astrid wonders how the fragile and awkward chiefs daughter got to be that way.

She makes a mental note to ask the blacksmith apprentice when they meet again for her new axe.

Lost in thought she doesn't see or hear Gobbers vast bulk approach until he lands his hand hook on the table and announces loudly to the five teens present.

"Listen up ya little snotswaddles, dragon training starts in the morning so git ready cos I aint scraping you off the floor!".

Astrid grins.

She doesn't see Gobber look at Hiccup and include her in the short speech.

Tired and with aching bones, Hiccup nonetheless manages to eat a full meal for the first time in days, greedily gulping down water and milk as her body forces the intentionally starved viking to feed it.

After a frantic few minutes of food, she slumps into the much bigger seat. Its intended for a much occupant, a boy and she hates to be reminded of that. She had to deal with Stoick and Gobber constantly prodding and demanding answers about why her clothes are ripped, they want to know how her body is so skinny and how she can fathom skipping meals.

So she agreed to eat a meal, drink and then go back to the forge. Better than to get stripped and let her dad and pseudo uncle question how her limbs and ribcage are bruised from being body slammed by a two ton damage that didn't kill her.

Groaning at a full belly she looks up and sees Astrids gaze upon her, all the way from the otherside of the hall.

Suddenly feeling very self conscious, she blushes and hides her face with a hand and waits for Astrid to go home before she climbs out of the chair and heads to the forge, wondering what exactly Berks master blacksmith needs from his apprentice after evening meals.

The crowd of eating vikings has disappeared and headed back to their families by the time she reaches Gobbers forge, it's only a short hike from the main hall although the steps leading down to the village from it can be treacherous with winters ice and she's fallen up and down them many times.

Her thighs ache from running with abandon through the forest and she may need to call off sick tomorrow if the rest of her body feels the same way.

A view from the top of the stairs is the only way to see all of the village of Berk, a settlement of around fifteen hundred vikings whose ancestors found a island, took it and have been at wars with dragons for around three hundred years.

She sits down on the first step down but away from the door and lets a trickle of drunk vikings come past, her skinny frame and out of the ways seating makes her invisible to them and she's thankful for that, the looks the village was giving her while she got food was a mixture of anger and pity.

There's going to be even more pity if she actually becomes chief, she knows that people don't want her in charge of them. They don't want Hiccup the useless attempting to guide Berk and its vikings.

Sighing deeply as she lays her head back, Hiccup resolves to do whatever dad and Gobber want and then just go to sleep, let tomorrow's problems be tomorrow's problems.

"on training, are you serious Gobber?".

"harm trying Stoick, I know that you want to protect but you have to let the girl at least have some kind of control in her life before she explodes".

Two loud voices, belonging to the male figures in her life argue outside the forge while she presses her head against the brightly lit door to it, trying to squeeze as much out of the conversation the two elder men are having.

"I know Gobber but for the love of her have you seen her? She barely eats and can't even pick up a vikings axe, let alone with a shield. And she's of age to get married". Her dad sighs audibly and she can hear his vast bulk lean against a wall as some of the weapons on said wall shake and vibrate.

"Marriage? They'll eat her alive Stoick, she's badly frustrated to begin with if you haven't noticed". Gobber retorts, the sound of his hook laying on a table means his in explanation mode to Stoick, the blacksmith has done this enough times that she can tell where the hook lands.

"Frustrated? How do you mean?" Stoicks voice turns questioning and she mentally and then physically facepalms, is her sexual life that bad that even a old man with more metal in his body than a axe can figure her out?.

"Look Stoick, ah yer daughter is at that time when women want to uh" Gobber stops and she can imagine that gears in his turning as he tries to explain teenage things to her dad who has never gotten her issues.

"Given the way she prowls around with that look on her face, you may come back home one to day to some poor lad chained to her bed!"

"I get it Gobber, my daughter wants to fuck."

Oh thor

Cringing and biting her lip, she fights the urge to smash the back of her head against the wooden door, do they seriously discuss her sex life in there?.

"Pretty badly if you ask me, Freydis Hofferson noticed it too when she saw yer daughter rush off home after she finished her chores here, said she looked extremely wound up".

Oh god, someone _saw her that day_?.

Making a mental note to stay away from Astrid's house next time she needs to go take care of herself, Hiccup blushes hard and whimpers as her legs tighten at the thought of that girl again.

Those beautiful blue eyes, biting lips and amazing blonde hair that she wants to run her hands through and-

"Get a grip of yourself" She whimpers and tries to make it go away.

"Hiccup is that you?" Stoick calls out and she knows she's been rumbled.  
Steeling herself and straightening up from the previously slouching position she opens the door and sees her dad at one end, still laying against that wall likely so that his head doesn't hit the ceiling, seriously this guy almost fills the entire room and the large frame of Gobber looks small in comparison while he sits next to some axes, idly polishing the head of one.

"Yer father wantsa talk to ya Hiccup" He grunts.

"Hi Dad, hi hi Dad" She stammers as his gaze looks her up and down.

"Did you eat?". He asks with narrowed eyes and she nods.

"Good!, I have great news for you!". He suddenly beams and her stomach does a backflip, he only does this when its something awkward for her to perform.

Thinking of what happened previously that day with the night fury, she decides to simply just tell him before she gets roped into something.

"I dont want to fight dragons" She admits.

"You're in the dragon training class tomorrow!" He grins, speaking at the same time.

Crap.

"I uh should have told you before but I think there is a need for bread making vikings or repair vikings dad!" She quickly spits out a line before he can respond, she can't go tomorrow. Not after what happened, not after she let a Night Fury go that's happily destroyed Berks catapults.

She awkwardly scratches the back of her head, no wanting to hear his response but knowing she'll have to anyway.

Her father, chief Stoick the Vast raises a eyebrow and looks over to Gobber for support.

"Dad w-what are you d-doing?" His daughter groans and flails her trademark shoulders in distress, unsure of what he's getting at.

Her father reaches into a bag nearby and pulls out a helmet.

"Girl, this was made from your mother's breastplate after she was taken, its the matching pair to my own helmet. Dont let her down alright?".

"To rephrase Dad, I can't kill dragons!" She whines, feeling helpless as he laughs it off and points to the room where all of her mad machines sits.  
"Hiccup, you literally have a room full of dragon killing weapons that you claim to have shot down a Night Fury with!".

"Dad I am super sure about this, I am really very extra sure that I wont".

"It's just nerves about it tomorrow, Gobber will help you with the weapons. I'm preparing Berk for one last sortie into the nest so I dont think we'll see each other again".

"Hiccup" He says solemnly, placing a giant hand on her shoulders and thrusting the helmet against her chest.

"Yes dad?" She sighs, knowing that her father has his heart set on her going into dragon training and also on another suicide mission to find the stupid dragon nest.

He then crouches down to be level, making eye contact with a slow deep breath.  
"I know what the villages think of you, but if I don't make it back then you'll become chief. Just listen to your heart and let Gobbers and the elders guide you, okay?".

"Yes dad".

He gives Gobber a solemn look and then exits the door, Hiccup still clutches the helmet as she struggles for words after her dads emotionally touching but potentially terrifying sentence.

Her as chief? Oh dear gods.

It took several minutes for Hiccup to form a complete sentence with a patient Gobber bringing in boxes of materials from the outside, his toothy grin never leaving as he sits down in the main rooms only chair and speaks.

"Before yer came in, yer dad and I had an interesting talk."

"Oh?" She raises a eyebrow as she slouches against the same wall her father recently occupied.

"I mean we talked about you Hiccup and came to the conclusion that since you cant wield normal viking like weapons, you could forge your own!."

"Gobber even I lightened the weapons they would still be too heavy, I mean look at me. I'm a toothpick" Groaning she looks over again at her body, not liking any of it. She's always struggled to wield anything other than a dagger.

"Aha thats where yer wrong! Our new flagship launched with some wood from Loki Island, the stuff is stronger and lighter than normal wood and since we have some left over". Gobber gives a broad smile and opens the box, revealing a few cut planks of said wood, giving it to Hiccup with a wink.

"Try not to kill the dragons tomorrow Hiccup!" He pats her on the shoulder and goes home, leaving Hiccup alone.

She stares at the wood and picks one of the planks up, it is lighter than what she's used to. Significantly so, maybe enough that she can make a axe and a shield that her tiny arms can wield.

"Huh, I can make this work" She murmurs to herself and makes a beeline to her forge. She's already plotting the drawing schematics in her head and the sudden rush of making things tells her that she doesn't need to sleep tonight.

First came the shield, disc shaped like all the others she's ever made but that's where the similarities end and the differences begin.

Firstly its center metal bolt, intended to hold the thing together has been reinforced with extra lines of metal running to join up with the metal rim. While other shields have four stake like lines, this one has twelve arranged into a star like formation. The massive lightening with the wood means that it should be able to take a hit from a dragon and remain intact and it has a buckle on the inside allowing her to hold it with her arm rather than her hand. Lastly she paints the wooden parts black with the metal spokes and buckle red.

So far so good.

Then comes the axe at 4am in the morning, she's slaved all night to make it and her hands hurt from both drawing countless designs and from incriete work on making it right.

The haft is around the length of her arm and slightly narrower in the middle with a a guard on where the upper and lower sections are, allowing her to wield it one or two handed without losing grip, there's also a leather buckle at the bottom,similar to the shield so she can simply carry it around.

The blade is a thing of beauty, a product of Hiccups master blacksmithing and a all nighter full of angsty teenage top of the haft connecting it is also painted red and the blade has a short curve to it. While other viking axes often have a massive axe head that is designed for sinking fully into a dragon for maximum damage, hers is shorter and more precise with a more angled appearance for chopping and if she has to, an extremely sharp narrow tip for slicing into whatever it has to.

She polishes them both for the first time, enjoying the feel of something she's made that won't get scorn from the others. Her hand crafted axe and shield will be the envy of Berk and her will be proud of what she's done.

Carefully placing them next to the helmet crafted from her mothers breastplate, Hiccup lays down on the floor with a sheepskin rug looted from the other room and goes to sleep with a smile. Content for once.


	3. Trapped (3)

Chapter 3: Trapped.

~~~~.

Astrid had awoken before the sun came up and shone what little winter light it could on Berk. Her parents had left during the night along with most of the island's battle-ready population in Chief Stoick's last expedition to find the dragon nest and end the threat. She ate breakfast and trained with her axe for most of the morning, throwing its double-headed blade into many unfortunate trees. She had also seen Hiccup at some point during her session in the forest but didn't pay much attention other than to wonder if the girl was going to get herself bloodied by the environment again.

Regardless, she was ready. She had trained quickly and hard. Today marked the first session of Dragon Training and that would be where she would prove herself to be leagues ahead of the other trainees, no matter if they worked together or not. Astrid Hofferson had been preparing for this for a good portion of her teenage life. When she was crowned the winner, she would kill the Monstrous Nightmare in front of everyone and prove to her parents that she was more than capable of defending Berk and that marriage was not an option she would be forced to accept.

She arrived at the arena at least twenty minutes before everyone else, including Gobber. He was one of the villages elders who sat on the council, its only full blacksmith, and the man who would be teaching her class.

Said arena was out a little ways from the village, requiring a short walk along a cliff face and then over a bridge.

She had already unlocked its gates and gone in. For a while she had simply traced her way around its large circular walls. she had stood above it before. It was an arena, after all, and she remembered sitting on the benches at ground level, watching down as a nameless gladiator had decapitated a dragon with one strike of a massive axe.

A few portions of the stone walls had been replaced with metal doors. Behind them were housed various they left, Astrid's parents had informed her that the Deadly Nadder they had captured by throwing a bola over was going to be used for the training. Astrid Hofferson sat down in the middle of the arena, recalling all her glimpses and memories of observing the adult Vikings of Berk fight dragons.

She drew her axe closer by her side.

Eventually the others arrived. The first was the pair of blonde skinny twins, Ruffnutt and Tuffnut, who seemed to be more prepared to fight each other than dragons. Their bickering and slapping each other's helmets over some random argument made them miss Astrid sitting directly in the centre until they almost fell over her. She waved them off, out of the way and the two moved to another part of the arena to continue their current feud.

Next was Fishlegs, with Snotlout trailing behind. The large blond nerd had simply acknowledged her before he scampered off to take note of the metal doors holding the beasts behind, or something. She didn't pay much attention to them either; she was a axe girl after all. Not a note girl.

Snotlout on the other hand, had not left her alone once he found her. His constant advances all made with that smirk on his face, his constant droning on about his huge muscles and that he would make a great husband with lots of sex irritated her enough that she just stood up and punched him in the ribs.

He left her alone after that.

Gobber did eventually show up, dragging a box of shields behind.

"Morning, gang!" He grinned enthusiastically as he removed each of the shields from the box and placed them next to a wall.

Astrid lined up with her axe ready, and the others joined in, forming a line.

"Good morning Gobber, when do we start?"one asked.

"Not just yet, we have another joining us".

Another?, thought Astrid. The last time she checked, there was going to be only her and the other four already in line at the arena. They were the ones Gobber had talked to about dragon training last night, and unless someone was planning to bring in younger kids or have older teenages redo the course, nobody else was supposed to be there.

"And that is?" Snoutlout, standing next to her. Of course, questions. "Always questions from Snoutlout", Astrid thought.

"She'll be here soon" answered Gobber with his grin.

A few minutes later, Snoutlout's question was answered. With flushed cheeks and panting slightly from previous exertions, Hiccup had arrived clad in her normal green tunic with a fur overcoat. Both of which she seemed to be slowly growing out of, Astrid noticed, her baby face beginning to get leaner and that mop of brown hair starting to spike.

Astrid was more interested in what the chief's daughter was carrying in each hand. One held a custom designed axe and the other a metal/wooden shield hybrid. She looked awkward carrying them but Astrid thought it was a much better image than towing around her inventions.

"Aw, great, who let HER in". Ruffnutt snorted.  
"When was useless allowed to fight dragons?" Snotlout sneered.

"I calculate Hiccups' initial survival chance at 85% with an average drop of fifteen percent every session" Fishlegs pointed out.

"Nice hatchet there Hiccup, glad tae know my loki wood was put to good use". Gobber smiled and gave the brunette a thumbs up with his only hand and Hiccup returned it.

The group immediately started complaining, they had all seen Hiccup's other inventions trash the village and always fail to even hit a dragon. She was very much the joke of the village in many Vikings' eyes.

Now said girl stood next to Gobber, the helmet sliding loosely around her head every time she moved and the others thought it comical to see her adjust it with her axe handle every time it began to fall off.

Still, she was carrying a axe. An actual axe that Astrid had never seen before, and it was quite unique, being shorter than most axes, and having one blade with three H's scribed into the metal. The shield was in a much better condition than everyone else's, in fact it looked like it had just been forged at the girl's hands.

How could Hiccup suddenly carry weapons when she had been clearly struggling just two days ago with Astrid's axe? Especially suddenly carrying one in each hand.

Then it dawned on Astrid: The custom design. The metalwork. The inscriptions.

Hiccup had made her own weapons.

And they looked damned good.

Astrid Hofferson actually felt jealous.

Hiccup's shiny new weapons had only bought her a short initial reprieve once the group noticed them and for a second Astrid swore she noticed some admiration by the others of the excellent craftsmanship. Well, until Snotlout snarked that Hiccup had already shot down a Night Fury and that she was obviously the master dragon killer; that bought a few laughs at Hiccup's expense.

After that Gobber had walked them all to one of the doors while chatting to Hiccup with an arm around her shoulder. Astrid had picked up that the blacksmith was giving her a pep talk about her being the smallest of the lot and the dragon would go for her last.

It didn't sound particularly convincing, in Astrid's opinion.

She had already sized up the competition: Fishlegs, the largest Viking, had a stone axe and seemed more interested in studying the dragons than reading so he was off the list. Ruffnutt and Tuffnutt had already hit each other with their spears and were talking about getting scars; if they worked together they could be a problem but she had a feeling that their infighting would keep either of them from doing anything productive.

Snotlout was likely her biggest threat. Strong, with the know-how to swing a axe, and he had already boasted about working out to her. His stance was sure-footed and he towered over everyone but Fishlegs. But it was like he was obsessed with the blonde valkyrie and Astrid figured that she could take him if needed.

Hiccup though. She might be a problem, Astrid thought, gnawing her cheek slightly.

She clearly had the best weapons of the group, although it didn't look like she wanted to be there. For Astrid, it was confusing to see the girl who had constantly worked herself up about crafting and employing inventions of dragon killing for years, and who had pushed herself to attempt to kill one, suddenly standing far away from everyone else, with slumped shoulders and a pained expression.

That was weird.

"Behind these doors are some of the deadly dragons you will encounter!". Gobbers' sudden speech had caught her off guard and Astrid tightened up. He was now walking up and down the group like he was on parade, lecturing them about the Deadly Nadder and the Terrible Terror inside the walls of the dark, sunken grey stone compound.

Astrid had unconsciously started to prepare herself already, as Fishlegs was rattling on about the statistics of the dragons he had found somewhere. he was more concentrated, more focused, holding her axe outstretched with one hand while shifting her stance to run with her legs and tightening her midsection.

"And of course, the Gronckle" Gobber chuckled to himself and opened the door to reveal what looked to be a bloated fly with a fat jaw, beady little eyes, and two stubby closed wings that started to open.

The others looked at it in wonder, and for a few seconds it stayed there, the light shining into its engorged eyes, before the thing burst out of its hole and scattered everyone but Astrid, as she had already begun running.

Gobber shouted out a question asking what was the first thing they needed.

Fishlegs screamed "Plus 5 speed".

Hiccup covered herself with her shield as the Gronckle flew overhead and smashed into the opposite wall.

Astrid picked up immediately on what Hiccup did and answered by sprinting to the shield rack, picking up the first one she could find as the rest of the group struggled to make their way over. The twins argued over oneshield and they attempted to snatch it from each other while the Gronckle fired its blast at them, knocking away the shield and toppling both of them to the ground.

"And yer out!" Gobber shouted and the twins fled out of the arena.

Today was about survival after all.

"Dragons rely on sound, bash and hit your shields!" He called out and the remaining four encircled the dragon, hitting their protective barriers with their weapons.

Hiccup's shield makes a loud metal clang every time she strikes it with the haft of her axe and Astrid can't but help notice that her right arm holding the axe seems a little off.

"Remember, a downed dragon is a dead one, make sure ya git a good look on those wings, kids, because without even one, this here Gronckle ain't flying again!". Shouted Gobber encouragingly.

"Dragons have a limited number of shots, how many does a Gronckle have?" Gobber questioned the four as the Gronckle switched its eyes from Viking to Viking, confused. They keep encircling it, walking around the head and tail as it begins to swing around from side to side, those little wings somehow holding it up.

"Five?" Snotlout calls out.

"No, six!" Fishlegs excitedly answers and raises his arms in joy as he gets the question unfazed, the dragon fires again and blasts his shield out of his hands, the tubby Viking running away as Gobber calls Fishlegs"Out!".

It's left to Snotlout, Astrid, and Hiccup now as they scatter again. With the chief's daughter managing to deflect a shot off her shield with a "pwang" as she gets knocked to the back of the notes that after this is over, she should ask for one of those shields of Hiccup's.

Narrowing her eyes and readying herself again to either jump out the way or dodge, Astrid does jump as Snotlout comes up from behind her, offering to kill the Gronckle as a sign of his notices the Gronckle coming towards them and rolls out of the way.

He doesn't and loses his shield as well. "Out, Snotlout!" yells Gobber with a gleam in his eye.

She had made a complete course of the arena before Hiccup had joined her.

"So it's just us then?" asks Hiccup.

The dragon comes round again and Astrid knows exactly what to do.

"Nope, just you!"

She rolls out of the way as Hiccup stands confused for a second before swearing at the incoming dragon and she barely raises her shield in time before the next lava shot hits it dead square in the centre. The fiery blast echos off the metal plating and sparks fly out from all directions as the brunette drops her shield. Absorbing the shock and with the heat from the metal sizzling the tips of her fingers, she sprints to the back of the arena in pain with the Gronckle following.

From a barely safe distance, Astrid watched in horror as the Gronckle almost took a bite out of Hiccup as it cornered her into the wall and she knew that it can't possibly miss her with its next attack. The girl is frozen in fear and can't move.

Gobber managed to embed his hook into the beast's mouth and wrench it away as a lava projectile embeds itself into the stone adjacent to a wide-eyed Hiccup's head.

"Training session over" He mutters darkly and a now embarrassed Hiccup grabs her things and walks out.

Astrid watches Hiccup exit and the rest of her peers pick themselves up and shamble over to the arena's exit abjectly.

"Gobber? How did I do?" Astrid catches up to the blacksmith and asks, her need to know how well she performed her biggest priority.

"Pretty well, those dodges ya did will serve ye well, Astrid. Just keep in mind that next session will be evasion, so keep it up and you'll be the star before ye even know it. Now scram, I gotta lock this place up".

First thing Hiccup did was put the shield away in her personal room. While it held strong against the first shot and even managed to deflect it, absorbing the lava rock thing attack had almost given permanent burns to her hands, and dear Thor, did they hurt.

She wrapped spare bindings around her red fingers and knuckles, thankful the shield had held strong. Proof that loki wood was superior. With any other wood, in the best case scenario she would have lost a hand. Worst case, Hiccup might have not come out of that arena alive.

Still, despite almost being eaten and making a fool of herself in front of Astrid, who was the last one standing, Hiccup was the **second** left upright. That in itself was a achievement for the thin girl, and she was the only one to actually successfully deflect an attack, two if absorbing that strike counted.

If only she had managed to stay with Astrid. That talk in the smithy had given her some hope towards an actual friendship and it looked like she blew it. Ruined the chance at friendship with the prettiest girl on Berk? Less than a few months ago Astrid Hofferson had started to go through puberty and those freckles on her face were gone now; she had gotten curvier and taller and her face was practically divine with those golden locks and fair skin.

It wasn't fair, Hiccup Haddock was still the same she was years ago, with that annoying baby face staring back at her every time she saw her own reflection. And while she had grown a little, all it did was make her clothes uncomfortable to wear. Why did the other kids have to grow before she did! Why was Astrid so fucking gorgeous that it made her salivate? Why did those amazing blue eyes feel like they pierced down into her soul?

Dammit.

At least she had alone time now. Dragon training was set to start tomorrow morning, so Hiccup had until from before dinner to the next day to herself and she knew where she was going. She had a plan.

Earlier today she had found the Night Fury by accident. Well, mostly by accident., She had taken a walk through the woods trying to see where it went after it almost killed her and bounded off. So with her axe and the shield, Hiccup had searched half of Berk attempting to locate the Black Dragon before she had ended up almost stumbling into it.

At the cove, to be precise, a large sunken area covered by trees and wildlife with steep walls. The dragon had somehow gotten itself trapped in there and was attempting to fly out. She had wondered for a minute or two, watching the helpless reptile scale the walls and scream in frustration as it could only fly erratically for a small distance before crashing, no matter how hard it tried or how loud it cried out.

It was pretty sad, actually, and Hiccup could empathise with it being trapped and unable to do anything. Obviously she had done this to the creature, it becoming apparent within a short while of observation that the unique twin tail the dragon had was essential to its flight and having only one fin instead of two rendered it useless.

Useless like her.

Useless, underweight, weak, and not even a real Viking.

So she had strove to help the poor thing.

Stoick's daughter had gone to dinner before anyone else, gone to the cook's house and bought a raw leg of mutton and a large cod., She had no idea what dragons ate but since they always went for the sheep or yaks and there had been sightings of them poaching from the fishermen's nets at the docks, she figured taking both would be safe.

The chef was fine with it, and Hiccup being on her own in that house for years since her father was often too busy chiefing allowed her to develop her cooking skills. Allegedly, Hiccup was the first female Haddock to not poison people with her food.

After that, she had repaired the damage to the shield and installed some insulation to the connecting point between her hand and the brace so an accident like earlier today wouldn't happen again, she had shut down the forge as Gobber was going to be busy reconfiguring the arena for the next "lesson".

She looked back on her room of weapons, from bola throwing catapults to multiple arrow launchers with even a ballista-style harpoon that had sunk a small fishing boat and she wasn't sure to be thankful that the dragon had avoided being hit by that.

Closing the doors and locking them, armed with a small dagger and two pieces of uncooked meat, Hiccup set off to find the dragon and hopefully feed it.

Or get eaten.

Hopefully.

She passed by Astrid on her journey, evidently the girl was getting extremely talented at attacking trees and imaginary foes. Thankfully Hiccup wasn't spotted, as getting caught gazing at the promising warrior might have gotten her an axe in the face or something.

The cove in the morning was quite pretty, the few morning rays that successfully pierced the cloud layer shone the walled natural feature quite well. But now in the late afternoon it had really come into life. The greenery had beautifully complimented the walled features and the rocks and narrow passages leading down made it feel like a secret passage to paradise, especially with that large blue pool in the middle.

Hiccup managed to snake through easily, her small frame becoming useful for once. Stepping into the open there was no sign of the dragon yet. Maybe it slept through the afternoons? It was a "Night" Fury after all.

Still, she could leave the food around somewhere and maybe it would eat the items later.

Hiccup threw the fish into the middle and waited, but nothing happened.

She ventured further in, now completely exposed if the dragon does decide the skin-and-bones Viking would be a tastier meal. Picking up the fish with one hand and the mutton in the other, she moved towards the centre, next to the pool. Glancing around in every direction, Hiccup tried to spot the dragon but still nothing.

"Where are you?" she asked, receiving no reply. Creeping along the shoreline slowly, she reached the opposite end of the pool before it hit her. There were rocks dotted all around, and the irregular pattern meant that the dragon could hide the-

"Oh shit" Hiccup swore loudly as the Night Fury popped up in front of her. It blinked slowly and powerfully raised its head over a large boulder and then lowered it onto the ground, like a cat hunting a small rodent. Wings fully outstretched and its black paws leaving small prints in the grass, it circled her, head low and eyes narrow as it came to a stop in front of her, sniffing loudly and swishing its injured tail from side to side.

"Oh hi Mr N-Night F-Fury, I bought these fo-for you" Hiccup stammered and took a step back, thinking she's the mouse caught by the cat and right now there is nothing stopping the most feared dragon in all of Berk from simply devouring the girl who shot it down.

Hiccup held the leg of mutton out in an outstretched arm, her hands beginning to itch and burn where they had touched that scalding hot metal earlier. The Night Fury looked at it, raising one of its ears instead of an eyebrow, and it seems that it is refusing the mutton.

She dropped the leg of lamb and tried offering the fish instead. This gets a response and the dragon sniffed loudly, eyes widening and a tiny bit of drool hitting the grass.

"Don't like mutton, huh?" she mumbled to herself, putting that revelation away for later, as there is a much bigger, more pressing concern - teeth.

The Night Fury came closer, opening its mouth and letting out a cute warble while fixing its gaze and now wide eyes on the fish. It must be seriously hungry, Hiccup thought. The dragon is almost pressing its nose into the fish until its ears suddenly flick up and it recoils, wings wide and tail swishing again.

"Wha?" Hiccup brings the fish close to her body, completely confused at the dragon's reaction. Why did the Night Fury decide to almost eat and then back off? It makes no sense.

The burned and bandaged fingers of her other hand brush against her jacket and make contact with the metal dagger she brought with her.

That's why.

She pulls the offending side of her jacket away, exposing the small weapon in its sheath and the dragon instantly tenses up, growling and staring at it.

"Leap of faith, Hiccup" she murmurs to herself and throws the dagger away, hearing a small plop as it lands in the pool.

The Night Fury's ears do a little wiggle and a few seconds later the black dragon sits on all fours, its body all neatly packed away as it stares expectantly at the fish just like a pet during morning feed, so she offers the fish out again. Her burnt fingers touch the salty raw meat once more and she winces as the pain hits her system.

The dragon slinks forward cautiously, but more openly this time with no snapping or anything, just a low hungry growl. Its mouth doesnt show any teeth, and Hiccup can swear that it almost ate her with a full set less than a day ago.

She stares at that open, starved mouth.

"You're toothless? I could have sworn you had tee-"

The mouth is suddenly filled with teeth again and the dragon takes the fish in a single bite, raising its head up in the air with a quick gulp and a loud swallow. Hiccup stepped back quickly, unsure why it was moving towards her again with a curious look, its eyes staring at the stomach which has betrayed Hiccup with a hungry growl.

It wants to feed her? Pay her back for the meal?

"I'm not hungry, sorry" She lied, backing up as the dragon pokes her vigorously in the gut with its nose. It knows that she's lying.

"Seriously, dragon! I. AM. NOT. HUNGRY!" She groans inside, thinking of the dinner which she must have missed by now, but she can't eat. She doesn't deserve to.

The night fury pinned her against a rock with a heavy paw as it sniffed the air before looking over at the discarded mutton.

"I'm not eating that, it's raw meat". Hiccup groans, trying to bat away the black limb with a skinny hand, recoiling as the touch of its scales presses against her fingers with a hiss of pain. The dragon notices and touches her other hand with its nose, prompting the same response.

"Yeah, I burnt my fingers today, it's nothing serious" she lied again.

The dragon licked Hiccup's fingers through the bindings and Hiccup widened her eyes with a confused look.

"What?".

At some point, after managing to convince the apparently-intelligent-enough-to-recognise-speech Night Fury that Hiccup's growling and hungry stomach was nothing, the dragon had gone off to sleep or lie down. And produced a jet of plasma? Around itself, presumably to heat its spot.

A bird had gone past and the dragon had let out a sad warble that it couldn't fly like that bird.

So Hiccup had time to herself and it was quiet now, nothing but the slow sounds of the surrounding forest and the dragon's sleeping noises.

Hiccup now had two new pressing concerns to worry about, now that the teeth issue had been settled. First, if her father didn't come back then she would be chief of Berk and that was almost guaranteed to end in her being deposed within days, as it was quite clear that the village was not enthusiastic about having Hiccup Haddock as leader. She had managed to keep those thoughts away yesterday and today with smithing and dragon training but now there was nothing to stop the depressing reality that nobody except perhaps Gobber and the Dragon (provided she kept feeding it) really liked her on this island. Not her peers. Not the adults or the elder and it was very doubtful that Astrid liked her either. If she was born a guy with huge muscles and had choked a dragon to death on the way out of her womb then she would have wooed Astrid and be married by now, just like her dad had wooed and married her mom.

Hell, she might have saved mom from being taken away by a stupid dragon.

Second, what just happened? She had been next to the most dangerous flying reptile in existence, she had touched it, and she fed it a fish. Nowhere in the history of Vikings had anyone ever gotten remotely close to doing that and surviving to tell about it. And while it was some achievement for perhaps someone from another culture, Berkians were expected to slay dragons. Not to mention Toothless (which was a fitting name in some irony for the Night Fury) was unable to fly so unless Hiccup managed to somehow get it back into the air to fly away from Berk, it would eventually be found and killed.

Toothless wais curled up a little bit away. Hiccupidly drew in the sand with a twig while sitting on a rock, and since she hadn't bring her notebook, this was the next best thing. She muttered to herself "I am so dead. If Dad comes back he'll expect me to be in first place in dragon training and no way I can beat Astrid or anyone else. I'll be a failure to him again, and there's nothing I can do about it". She slumped back, the mental images of her dad shouting, the judgmental faces of the local population and Astrid staring at her, all crowding in on her musing.

"Why did it have to be this way, Thor?, I swear my dad ordered the wrong Hiccup at a bar and asked the owner if he could return me". She balled a fist and slapped it against the stone, hissing again as the burns make themself apparent but less intensely so than last time.

She keeps drawing lazily with the other hand for a while before eventually looking down at her creation.

It's a face of Toothless.

Said dragon looks up at her and comes over to her side as it stretches a few times, looking down at the drawing in the side, narrowing its eyes and moving around to get a better look at her strange creation, Toothless's ears flap and she can hear his brain working.

"It's you".

Toothless glances over to the pool of water, spotting his reflection in it and then back to the drawing, he does this for a few more times cocking his head from side to side. Each trip with more concentration and focus before settling his gaze on her with those cute orbs called eyes.

He nods.

Hiccup drops the stick in shock.

Toothless had studied the small Viking for a while, noticing her quirky and unreasonable habit of denying the hunger in her stomach. She was obviously interested in him, staring at him with her intense green gaze for hours while he pretended to sleep. He knew that she was the one who had destroyed his freedom in the sky and he had wanted to kill her in revenge. To rip her apart and then satisfy himself knowing that he had taken at least one down with him.

And then she had freed him from the ropes and bindings that he had fallen into and was trapped by, that was confusing.

Even more astonishing to the Night Fury was that she had came back twice, and the second time she had fed him with a fish. Why? Why would the human who shot him down , free him and then offer food?.

She was a curiosity and he would need time to digest and process what exactly this Viking's plan was, but she didn't seem to want to bring him harm. After all she had plenty of opportunities to end his life while he was trapped.

So he let her observe him, and when he had gone over to her side, he had watched with intense interest. Warbling softly and using all his senses to realise what had happened in those hours of pretend sleep time, she had drawn his face. And he thought it was amazing at least; while he had seen his face multiple times in the reflection of oceans and rivers, but to gaze upon himself in sand drawn with a stick was something he would have never foreseen in his almost twenty years of life.

The human was astonished too. His senses had picked up her increased heart rate and he had seen her previously mopey expression grow into one of fascination as she realised that he, the most intelligent Night Fury, was not as stupid as some of the other dragons.

He then decided to do one better, and while he lacked the fine motor control with his paws that she had, he was far stronger.

"Toothless?" She called out as he wrestled a good sized branch out of a tree.

He warbled back her name, having heard the word "Hiccup" enough to deduce that that silly word was what she was called, a strange name but hers nonetheless. Certainly less weird than the one she gave him but it was more distinct and personal than Night Fury or Dragon. And regardless it made him feel special. Special enough that he let a human into his personal space.

He started to copy her movements on a larger scale, having picked up the branch in his mouth and started - drawing? Or making lines in the sand, his original idea having been to draw Hiccup to show that he was her equal but the difficulty of attempting to use the piece of wood in his mouth to emulate the girl's designs became apparent. So he had settled on something more physical.

For the next few minutes while Toothless spun around on his hind legs, as his plan slowly came to fruition, it was incomprehensible at first to Hiccup. But when he was done and had sat back on his haunches expectantly, she had gotten the gist of it.

His friendly warbles and warning growls guided her along the circle of lines he had made, and eventually she laughed and enjoyed the challenge he had made, she had to navigate his maze without touching the sand lines.

It was good to see her smile, thought Toothless.

After finishing she had almost bumped into him and he was afraid that she would go back to being shy again.

But she didn't, her own green eyes widened for a second and the little Viking stiffened and held her hand out towards his nose, instead he was the afraid one for a second and he shied away with a growl before realising what she meant.

She, Hiccup the Viking, wanted to be friends with him. Toothless the Night Fury.

They could have killed each other by now, but she had freed him. She had fed him, he had offered her food and they had relaxed around each other enough for her to be welcome in his company.

He put his nose in his hands and he felt her run her long fingers along his smooth black scales, the touch was welcome, even if it was cold and getting dark by now.

She had eventually gotten to sleep before it was night, evidently not wishing to return to her Viking it was cold, Toothless's scales and internal heat kept it from posing a problem. Not so, for the girl though. she was slowly shaking in her sleep and had woken up multiple times within a few short hours. She was cold, her furless skin and clothes had provided little warmth against the beginning biting winds of winter. And she was hungry too, her body having little energy. Did she abuse herself? Was this intentional?.

So he made a decision, one that no dragon had ever done before. But then again no dragon had ever done anything that he and Hiccup had demonstrated that day.

Toothless crawled over to Hiccup and wrapped her scrawny, cold body up in his paws; she had yelped and panicked but after realising there was no danger, she had fallen asleep quickly.

The Night Fury blasted a small stream of plasma breath onto the ground and then he carefully lay down with Hiccup pressed against his belly and his tail wrapped around the both of them, it being the warmest part of the dragon.

She was his human now, and if she was going to feed him, then he would return the gesture by giving her a safe place.


	4. Panic (4)

Panic.

An immense ship sailed at the forefront of forty longships, its size and weight comparable to three of its smaller sisters; it was called the _Njörðr _and at its front, perched on top of a battering ram in the shape of the Norse God it was named for, stood Stoick the Vast_. _Every single ship was crammed with supplies and weapons and crewed to almost overfull with the best dragon-killing Vikings this side of the archipelago. They had left civilisation yesterday, having passed through the immense dockyards and warehouses of the curiously empty Berserker tribe.

They had almost hit mist covered islands and nearly been drowned by waves fifty metres high but Stoick's warfleet persisted as they continued to search for the dragons nest that spat out those flying reptiles who had tormented Berk for three hundred years.

Three days of sailing and basically nothing to show for it. No Gronckles to headbutt and lift the longships out of the air, no Nadders that stayed out of range and impaled the heaviest battle armour with their spikes.

Just nothing.

It infuriated Stoick the Vast, it made him want to throw his axe into the air and dare the gods themselves to challenge his Vikings with an unending horde of Titanwings. Or buckle his ships' spines with the Tidal Classes.

Anything would be better than monotonous silence.

"Chief, the crew's are getting restless. We're three days out from Berk and nobody has found a single thing". Spitelout, his brother and the head of the mighty Jorgenson family interrupted the Chief's brooding as he stood perched at the front of his flagship.

"We keep going, Spitelout" Stoick snapped back as a spray of sea water splashed over the bow and coated his beard.

"Stoick, we haven't had one sighting of a dragon, dragon island, or a nest." said Spitelout plaintively.

"I don't care, Spite, we keep going until we find the nest or the fleet falls off the edge of the world. Am I understood?".

"Yes Chief".

He had to get rid of the dragon threat soon, preferably before the attacks resumed once winter ended. Berk didn't have an infinite supply of materials or manpower. While Stoick had one of the larger populations in the region, it was mostly mercantile and based on fishing. In contrast, the Berserkers had recently started raiding small settlements with Oswald's son, Dagur the Deranged, at the head of a thousand Berserker warriors and at least half as more ships as Stoick could ever field.

He couldn't deal with both the dragons and Dagur once that lunatic turns his attention north. His people and Hiccup would be sandwiched and trapped.

Some of the elders and ruling families, including his own brothers, had suggested offering Hiccup as a bride to Dagur. After all, the Deranged was obsessed with the girl every time they met and while he acted reasonably decent (for him) in public, Stoick had heard tales and had seen the bruises and damage that Dagur had caused to his daughter once they were left alone. Drowning and beatings were common and Hiccup had eventually grown used to them; she didn't run to him screaming with a tear-covered face anymore.

That wasn't a good sign for anybody. Was that the start of his daughter's reclusiveness? Of her refusal to eat?.

Stoick would have to put out more fires if he ever got home. It almost made facing the nest alone preferable to Stoick when politics, Berk, and his daughter were involved. Facing the council of Elders, the heads of the Thorston, Ingerman, and Hofferson families, and of course his own damn brother if he failed was not a happy prospect for Stoick. And that **will **start the avalanche of questions: Why can't he defend Berk? Why is his only child a clearly unsuitable choice for chief? Why doesn't he remarry and produce a new heir?.

Stoick ruminated. If he loses, then Hiccup loses. She'll get challenged by power-hungry families and their much more physically powerful offspring. She'll either be exiled or killed and her mind will not save her.

For both of their sakes, he had to find that nest and end the war between Berk and the dragons before this narrow slice of time ends.

Day number three or was it four for Toothless? He was starting to lose count of the number of hours he would stare at the walls of his prison that he could never scale. He felt anger at seeing the flocks of seagulls that would land and shit on the ground he walked, then before he could react, they would easily take off and leave this hole in the ground he inhabited.

He had felt fear, actual palpable fear that his life would end and he would never be able to see, feel, or fly again when that little Viking had found him with her weapon. He had shied away and eventually stared in disbelief as he watched the girl's internal conflict, and to his amazement she had set him "free", well, free enough that he could move again although never fly. One of his tail fins was gone and unlike other dragons who could handily lose part of their flight anatomy, he couldn't. He, _the Night Fury,_ who had sown fear and destruction wherever he had flown while invisibly camouflaged in the night, was useless and helpless. He had contemplated simply sticking his head underwater when the second day arrived and the reality of the situation was clear: he would never fly again. Never would Toothless the Night Fury ever touch the clouds or dive at speeds other dragons could only wish.

And by a cruel touch of fate the same Viking that had shot him down had come back and had saved him, given him food and something to focus on. He had in return protected her from the elements and healed her slightly burnt hands. While it was puzzling that she was extremely hungry and had refused his offered food, he had accepted it. While she slept, he was awake and had passed the time by listening to her heart beat and enjoy the amusement of the girl's rampant hormones. Evidently she was in prime condition for mating season but had not yet performed the rituals of it, judging by her body's nocturnal emissions.

Hiccup had eventually arisen and thanked him for letting her sleep, he had warbled and nuzzled her hand automatically this time and she eventually left, running into the woods while shouting over her shoulder about needing to be back in the village in time for dragon training. Whatever that was. But before she had scampered off, Hiccup promised that she would find a way to let him fly again.

While Toothless was skeptical that could ever happen, there was some small part of him that had hope.

Yesterday had indicated to Berk that Astrid Hofferson was a rising star in dragon it had only been one session, her performance as being the only one left standing combined with a good word from Gobber had ensured that her peer group and some older Vikings had sat with her at dinner, praising her work. Fishlegs had questioned her on the Gronckle's speed and other nerdy things, the Twins were annoyed that she didn't have scars, and Snotlout still made clumsy passeson her but it was a welcome respite from constantly training out in the woods. In the woods where she was often lonely, especially now that both her parents were on the search and her little sister Brenda was entrusted to the care of some close and much older relatives as it had been determined that shieldmaiden Astrid wouldn't be able to take care of a nine year old Brenda for an uncertain and undefined length of time.

Still, she missed Brenda. The household was empty and devoid of family for now. While everyone else in the training group had someone to go home to, Astrid did not.

She resolved to do better tomorrow so she wouldn't have to go home, she'd do so damn well that the entire feasting hall would revel in her name and she'd pass out on the floor surrounded by all of Berk rather than in a cold bed amongst an empty house.

The next day of dragon training came almost too quickly but that was fine, she didn't want to spend any more time than she needed to in the Hofferson household. She had her axe, the shield on loan from yesterday, and the armoured tunic that had been in her possession since she was ten years old.

The dragon arena was different this time. She had joined her peers at the start of what looked to be a maze of criss-crossing wooden walls and sectors that more than likely had a dragon prowling around in. She pretty much knew that the Monstrous Nightmare and Zippleback were out as they were both too large and unwieldy to fit in such a maze, and they had already fought the Gronckle yesterday, so that left the Deadly Nadder.

Fleet footed, quick with its multiple rows of spines that it could fire with deadly accuracy, and possessing the hottest fire breath of any known dragon, the Deadly Nadder was going to be a challenge for sure, but then again she was here to be the best. Gobber had turned up a few moments before and was lecturing Fishlegs and Snotlout, giving the blonde boy pointers on staying calm and not panicking and telling the Jorgenson off for distracting others in the field while the Twins poked and prodded at the high walls, giggling to themselves about some inside joke that only they knew or understood. Hiccup hadn't arrived yet but she was always late and given the near death experience they all watched yesterday, it would be understandable to an extent if she was apprehensive about coming in again.

They were all shocked when she did a few minutes later. Hiccup hadn't bothered to acknowledge anyone other than to retort back at Snotlout when he announced that the useless one had arrived, her response was to lecture him about the dangers and perils of self deprecation before turning to converse with Gobber about Night Furies or something Astrid didn't really need to pay attention to.

She did hear a snippet of the blacksmith asking his apprentice where she had been last night and why she looked so dirty and beaten, like she spent the night in the forest or something, Hiccup had responded that she had gotten carried away in the forge and had forgotten to eat.

The session finally started some minutes later with the Twins heading off to one side and everyone else scattering being mindful of Gobber's advice from yesterday Astrid carefully slunk around every corner instead of running, mindful and ready to dodge out of the way if she needed to while the old blacksmith continued to lecture everyone from his spot above the maze.

"Today is all about attack. That Nadder is quick and agile, so you've got ta be quicker and more agile!" announced Gobber.

She could hear the slow and heavy footsteps of the Nadder inside the arena. It was somewhere near,but judging from the sound it wasn't near **her** thankfully, she would have thrown a fit if it got to her first.

Instead Fishlegs was the first to find it, his girlish screams followed by a blast of fire and dropping of his shield against the wall that earned him an instant timeout.  
"I'm really starting to question your teaching methods!" whined Fishlegs to Gobber

"Ah ya'll be fine! Okay kiddos. Every dragon has its own blindspot, that's where it can't see you. So try to be quiet and find that blindspot!" shouted Gobber.

She peered around a corner to find the twins arguing about how badly each other smelt.

"Pew ye, Tuff do you only bathe in dead fish or something?" Ruffnut gagged, dropping her axe with an audible clang as she held her nose with herfree hand.

"I find the aroma to be quite enchanting and adds to my noble character, dear sister, YOU ON THE OTHER HAND are a fashion disaster!" Tuffnutt retorted back, pointing at his sibling's long blond hair.

Locked in an argument they failed to hear the Deadly Nadder creeping up on them, Astrid crouched down and stayed as quiet as she could, reasoning that if it's attracted to noise like that Gronckle had been, then the Deadly Nadder should target her last.

The Nadder towered above the twins and they both froze before looking up at it slowly. It was completely different than the Gronckle yesterday. Instead of a dull brown coat, the Nadder's hide was full of bright colours; rather than having a few jagged teeth, it had multiple spiney ones. If it was anything but a dragon, she would have called it pretty.

It sniffed the twins helmets inquisitively, crouching down on its two legs and bringing its snout to their faces. Astrid bet that Ruffnutt was very much regretting dropping her axe as the Nadder poked the taller blonde girl's shield with an outsized tooth.

Tuffnutt yelped, Ruff screamed, and the Dragon gagged at the smell before blasting its superheated flame breath at the two now disappearing twins who it began to chase after, completely missing Astrid's presence.

She was partially right at least: movement and sound was the key to evading detection and she followed the redoubled screaming as stealthily as her armour and weaponry would allow.

After hearing the twins either knock each other out or get blasted by the Nadder, she came across Snotlout being uncharastically quiet as he squatted down at one of the end corners.

"Hey" He whispers with wide eyes.  
"Hey" She motions back, looking in all directions for a now hidden Dragon.

An unsettling quiet descended on the arena with only a few squawks or scaley footsteps pounding echoing on the other side of the open aired building.

"So, uh, doing well?" The Viking boy asked awkwardly. Astrid found amusement that outside of his bluster in public, he was capable of at least looking like he was fearful.

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Is it just us two?"

"Nah, Hiccups still around somewhere, scrawny mcpants is too loud to be knocked out quietly".

"Alrighty"

"HEY GOBBER, HOW WOULD SOMEONE SNEAK UP ON OR TELL THE TYPICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE A NIGHT FURY?"

"For fuck's sake, Hiccup" Astrid swore under her breath and threw a badly aimed rock, barely missing the brunette who had blown their cover as the Nadder poked its head round a nearby corner and opened its mouth.

Astrid hunkered behind her shield and muttered a prayer, while Snoutlout swore hard enough to be cursed in the next life, and Hiccup stammers and drops her shield.

"Hiccup!"

"Oh shit!".

Hiccup managed to raise her custom shield in time for the Nadder's fire blast to hit it dead centre, the hot flames battering against the wooden and metal framework as sparks fly off in all directions. A spark set off a small fire in Snotlout's tunic. That fully occupied his attention as he panicked and hurriedly beat at it to extinguish the flames. Astrid waited with bated breath as the burning stream dissipated; incredibly Hiccup was still standing with a burnt but completely intact shield.

The dragon seemed to have the same reaction, hesitating and cocking its head, evidently not used to being unable to burn people alive or something.

If it's confused then it's a perfect opportunity to attack.

Astrid raised her axe high and advanced, going from a walking pace to a steady jog as she closed the gap; her weapon now aimed straight at the beast's throat. She'll cut its jugular and then slice a wing off, she'll be the first viking to kill a dragon before training's over and her unmarried status will be secure.

She threw her shield to the ground, and slid a second hand onto her axe handle knowing she'll need a heavy dual-handed strike for this. The dragon looks up with wide eyes and rears back, opening its mouth to expose its neck as it starts to build up for another flame breath, the fiery signs glinting off her axe buts Astrid's committed now and it's going to take the dragon precious seconds to even begin its deadly exhalation, more than enough time for her to close the distance and start the swing that will end this.

"TILL VALHALLA" Astrid screams as loudly as she can, about to take a running leap before something interrupts her.

It's a red and black metal shield that takes her legs out, making her slam her axe against the dragons torso, the biting edge of her weapon cutting a non-lethal blow into its belly as she body slams down on the hard stone floor while it flies off in distress.

"Wha?"

Hiccup shuffles awkwardly besides Astrid.

"Ow"

Astrid is dazed and confused with the wind knocked out of her.

"Sorry I".

Did she fall?

"I-I didn't think y-you wo-would m-make it in ti-time".

Hiccup did this.

"I'm sorry A-astrid".

She made her lose.

Snarling a wordless curse, Astrid got up on her knuckles, reaching for her bloody axe as Hiccup motions to leave as fast as she can.

"Where do you think you're going?".

"Dragon training is over for the day?".

She easily catches up and grabs the smaller girl by the collar, shoving her into a nearby wall, Gobber cries out in the background but she doesn't give a shit right now. This girl made her lose, she doesn't understand or care that Astrid Hofferson could have been the first viking to kill a dragon in training, or that Astrid's going to be married off.

Those bright green eyes are full of fear, limbs flailing as she whimpers.  
"What the fuck were you thinking Hiccup?" Astrid snarled as she pressed in.

"I did- th-think".

"No you didn't think".

"H-hey!"

Astrid can't hold it in any longer, she can't lose.

"IS THIS SOME KIND OF A JOKE TO YOU HICCUP HADDOCK?". Astrid let loose all the bottled frustration from the past few days, if the girl hadn't wet herself before, she has now.

"Y-yes".

"OUR PARENTS".

Shouting hurts.

"We are about to become the next generation of Vikings to protect Berk, do you understand that? Cuz I don't think you do. You made the best fucking shield I've ever seen and then used it to stop ME from killing a dragon".

Hiccup nods, letting out a pained squeak and Astrid realises she's easily crushing the next chief of Berk.

"Figure out whose side you're on".

Astrid turned sharply away from Hiccup. She angrily picked up her shield and walked off, leaving the other girl to hyperventilate and collapses against the wall..

"I'm sorry, Astrid". Hiccup moaned painfully.

Astrid only half heard the frightened apology; she had training to do, followed by dinner and then sleep.

She fucked up, badly. Badly enough to piss off her crush and the Nadder was hurt regardless. But she couldn't stand by and watch the Nadder being killed, even if she was the one who attracted it there in the first place with her stupid question. It was scared and had that look like Toothless did just a few days ago, so she had to stop Astrid's attack.

And now Astrid was pissed. Hiccup's torso was numb from being grabbed and shoved. But at least the Nadder was gone; Gobber had quite literally thrown it back in its cage and he had carried her out of the arena, not even bothering to lock the gates. He had commented that she smelled something awful and needed a bath, and food. And water. She supposed he was right considering she hadn't had any of either the last two days and now her stomach was starting to rumble and complain.

Stupid stomach. And she felt like complete shit.

Gobber felt nice to snuggle up against, possibly the only benefit of her not growing in five years was that he could pick her up and carry her off. In a way the middle-aged blacksmith was a better father figure then her own dad; at least he listened and understood. He had taken care of her when mom died, fed and clothed her when dad fell apart at the seams. And now he was cradling her in the forge, telling her that he'll get some water and a light snack, suggesting that she could bathe afterwards and that she should work on something to distract her mind and then they'll have dinner together.

She sat down in the only chair, made for Gobber's huge bulk, but it was fine. It felt like a foster dad. She wiped away her tears and let the panic attack fade away and her heart rate slowly drop back to normal.

She just closed her eyes, slumped back in the chair, and figured that she should do what Gobber suggested. She could work on getting blueprints and designs of a prosthetic fin for Toothless. Something lightweight, but flexible enough to be able to hold the wind and still be strong enough to perform as the second part of the double tailfin.

She could picture it now in her head: two or three metal braces looped around the end of the tail, strapped against a long support shaft for reinforcement with metal holding pins making up the framework of the fin and stretched tough leather to act as the skin of it. It shouldn't be too difficult as she could remember the rough measurements of the Night Fury's tailfin in her head and she did have various doodles and drawings to go through. She could probably start on it tonight and rig up a practice model and then bring it to Toothless after dinner or tomorrow morning with some seafood to keep him occupied while he got used to having the artificial fin nearby. Perhaps she would be able to cajole him into letting her strap it on him once he finished eating.

Actually scratch that; she thought. Regular leather would have holes worn through it quickly, she would need to boil the leather to harden it.

The door to the forge opened.

"Hey, I know it's been a rough couple of days for you so I won't pry, but lass, please get some food down ya gullet before you waste away". Gobber spoke softly as he laid down a small plate of food and a goblet of water on a nearby table. Hiccup nodded and got out of the chair slowly, her knees feeling weak and wobbly from the emotional battering and lack of food.

"I'll see you later at your house alright?"  
"Sure".

She satisfied her body's nourishment needs in a few short minutes, tearing into the meat and vegetables that Gobber had taken from the food stores, her stomach's protests dying down as she filled it with the resources it needed to shut the fuck up. The water tasted pretty nice too.

She briefly thought about working on the tailfin immediately, but that could wait. She had to bathe and get clean or Gobber would force her. So she went back home and grabbed a set of cleaner clothes from a drawer and headed back outside towards Berk's hot springs. The island had enough of them for everyone. The larger ones would be more communal and the elders often held meetings while bathing while the smaller ones would be more private, for families, for couples, and in her case, just for Hiccup.

She had chosen one behind a set of rocks, secluded and round in shape, away from the rest with a small raised patch of ground in the middle that she put her dirty clothes on and the new ones outside. She wasn't that worried about getting caught since Berk's Vikings never bathed during the day as anything that wasn't morning or dusk was considered working hours.

She shed her bindings and stepped naked into the warm water. She had her bath back at the house but without someone else there it felt lonely and isolated, while here she could listen to the sounds of the wildlife that was still present in the trees surrounding her bathing spot.

Her body felt narrow and skinny, ribs poking out, with her limbs long and boney. It felt good to hide them under the water and her head followed below the surface, washing herself of all the dirt of the forest, fighting, and Toothless's body odor and licks. At least with her bleeding finished this month she didn't have to worry about blood suddenly rising to the surface and giving her a heart attack at the thought of some unseen wound.

The rag she bought along felt rough, but it was sufficient to scrape off the more difficult to get dirt and soil that had accumulated on her body that just fingertips couldn't get, next came soap that she doused herself with, and in a few short minutes she went from smelling like a yak to an actual human being.

Hiccup washed her hair as well, using the warm water and leftovers of the soap.

And she was done.

Well, on the outside anyway.

Internally, she wasn't.

For whatever reason while the other teens had grown in height, her body had changed in a different way and that different way was a dull throbbing ache between her legs, something primal and hard to get rid of without excessive physical or mental exhaustion.

She had to get rid of it.

Hiccup moves around the rock to a different spot where she could lay against it, her body fully invisible under the warm water, raising her knees up and giving herself a prod down there.

First time she saw another girl naked was Errika; Errika was eighteen years old when she was married off to a wealthy family of another tribe and Hiccup had been asked to take Stoick's role in the marriage ceremony and act as a witness when they performed the bedding ceremony. Errika was a wealthy fisherman's daughter and Hiccup had fantasized about her for days. The tall ginger hair with locks and braids that ran forever, strong legs and a backside to back it up, with supple arms and a gorgeous face.

Watching her moan like a tavern whore made performing the previous parts of the ceremony worth it as her knees almost buckled and Hiccup had had to check if she had clean underwear on as her body struggled to not give in while packed amongst five indifferent and unknowing adults.

One finger.

Now she's tensing again, thighs squirming together as she massages and then rubs her breasts, the heat getting stronger with the memory of Errika's wedding night coming back into her head.

Deeper.

Could she have requested to spend the night with Errika that time? She did have the chiefs authority and could have comitted legal murder, would the girl have accepted the scrawny brat that Hiccup was? Did she care?

Goddamn the thought of asking Errika to use those muscles on her was making breathing difficult, the idea of those kissable lips smooching over her body making her squirm and whimper while those damn hands explored her body and she would do the same back, or try to. Just reliving the memory was what kept her awake and busy at night for two weeks, enough for her imagination to scream at her to do nothing except furiously masturbate.

Two fingers.

The way Errika's breath caught when she was close, her fingers and toes clenching onto the bed sheets as her body tensed up and orgasmed while she begged to go for a second round.

Hiccup would.

With her.

Deeper.

She wanted to kiss her so badly, to explore what made the girl tick like a complicated piece of machinery; she would take her apart or be taken apart. Both prospects were pretty hot so no complaints as long as she could have a roll in the bedsheets with that girl, or with any girl that she was attracted to, really.

She wouldn't care what their names were or where they were from as long as she could satisfy her urges for one night, not giving a shit if her dad or the whole of Berk would hear as long as Hiccup's body and soul got what they needed, someone to lay in bed with even if it's just for one night. To feel the fingers of her tracing along her body. Reactions. Movements. Sounds.

She couldn't hold it in any longer, suppressing sounds will only get a girl so far and fuck anyone who might be listening in on her quiet secluded world.

The memories were coming back strong, Hiccup timing her whimpers and squeaks in sync with Errika's remembered mews as she tried stroking her free hand everywhere across her own body while imagining it's that hot fisherman's daughter touching her.

Just for one night.

Please?

A/N

Looks like we're in for the long run, I have no intention of making this a typical fic where Hiccstrid happens shortly oh no D: Currently hoping for a chapter every 1.5-2weeks of 5-10k words, I was originally thinking of having a triple chapter update every month but scrapped that. Im happy that the reviews and good number of views and likes has been positive, so thank you:) Its always nice for a first time fic^^

Fanfiction review reply.

Shipvetraxsara good? GOOD :3  
Nyght526 It does seem to be strange that this may be the first one, most of the times its genderbent but hey, I aint complaining^^

Archive  
**Diana ** I guess Toothless more felt it was an exchange of goods, "You give me Y, I give you X" Then again Dragons do likely see and feel things differently. I fully intend to at least explore Toothless's options and how he would feel being trapped.


	5. Doubt (5)

Doubt

Gobber request the group to join him before dinner at one of the catapult sites for a discussion. He wanted to talk about everyone's performance at Dragon Training, and Astrid assumed it was going to be serious.

"He took my hand and swallowed it whole! I saw the look on his face as my hand went down his gullet".

"What was it Gobber? Did he come back for more?"

"No...I was...delicious. But he musta passed the word to the rest of the buggers because a month later another of the dastardly beasts came to take my leg!".

Exhausted, tired, and worn down, Astrid slumped onto a nearby log and set her axe down where the rest of the group minus Hiccup were gathered round a fire as the sun began to set on them, listening to one of Gobber's stories as he likely exaggerated everything while waving a cooked yak thigh about.

Nobody noticed her yet as they were too engrossed in the tales, and for once she was content with that and being at the edge of the group.

"Isn't it too weird to think that your hand was actually inside a dragon, like, what if your mind was still in control of it?" Fishleg mused out loud, clearly thinking too much into it and Astrid suppressed a snort.

"YOU COULD CRUSH HIS HEART! I'M SO ANGRY! I SWEAR I'LL AVENGE YOUR BEAUTIFUL FOOT GOBBER!" Snotlout screamed and thrust his yak thigh at the sky as a promise. "I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight when I become the greatest dragon slayer Berk has ever known!" he ranted on.

"Nah, it's wings and tail you really want Snotlout, once you lop those off it can't fly or get away". Gobber grinned.

Astrid had eventually joined in on the conversation when the old blacksmith asked everyone present to explain where and why they went wrong. the Twins had no idea; Fishlegs had admitted that he might have been fearful of being roasted alive, so he had won in order to avoid that. Snotlout boasted that he had zero fear of the dragons and expressed his desire to "do what Astrid did".

And then it came to her, the five faces on top of the ramp staring and waiting for an answer.

"Where did Astrid go wrong?".

She didn't. Except for dropping her shield with the nadder, Astrid Hofferson had performed perfectly well. She hadn't been hit at all and had managed to evade both dragons so far. She was the only one to have not been knocked out and allegedly already had a fan club amongst the dragons as Brenda had told her during the rare lull of empty time that she had today.

But she didn't kill the Nadder, she only wounded it. It was Hiccup's fault that she couldn't and part of her was still fuming at that. The other part of her was nursing a barely suppressed painful urge to blame herself for not being good enough. That she should have seen it coming and either blocked, dodged, or otherwise batted the thrown shield away.

She had to be good enough, she had to be perfect, and if she wasn't perfect then it was going to mess things up and that thought was already fucking rankling her at the back of her mind.

"Astrid, you there?" Ruffnutt jabbed a finger in her direction and her mind popped back to the moment, immediately snapping a satisfactory answer.

"I dropped my shield when rushing the Nadder".

The group nodded in unison and she hid a balled fist.

"I should have killed that Nadder though". She admitted.

"You could have burn scars if it exploded! SCARS ARE AWESOME!" Cried out Tuffnutt, slapping Ruff on the helmet.

"Yeah babe, you could have mounted its head on _my _wall" Snickered Snotlout and Astrid shot him a glare which he obviously ignored - or was too dense to notice.

Looks like she has a fanbase here, too.

That made her feel just a little bit better.

"I disagree Astrid". Sighing and putting his food down, Gobber brought out a heavy book.

"Yeah! Wait - What?" Snotlout stammered.

"Those dragons in the arena are training dragons; it can be difficult to get fully functional adults that haven't been killed or injured by Berkians during raids. We starve the training dragons intentionally so they aren't as dangerous. If they are weak before they are struck with a full blow, then they die."

What? Astrid hadn't thought of that.

"Astrid, your behaviour would be commendable if it was an actual battle, but you could have gotten yourself seriously injured if you had missed a strike. Even weakened, the Nadder might have taken you apart. Not to mention there's a thing called being too eager".

That stung.

Gobber jabbed a finger in her direction, his normally friendly face now scowling.

"And you also attacked Hiccup for no reason other than she stopped you from trying to kill that Nadder. In fact Astrid, she may have even saved your hide, so tomorrow I recommend that you apologise!".

"Well if she screwed up, then how about useless? She's not even here!" Snotlout retorted in Astrid's defense.

"My dau- Hiccup is busy, Snotlout."

"Too busy to be here at a very important meeting?" Fishlegs chimed in.

"She's the chief's daughter. Hiccup has work to do that the rest of ye don't need worrying about". Gobber shut down the conversation and raised up the book he was previously holding instead, insisting that they all needed to live and breathe the book of dragons; as it contained all the information and more that a Viking would need to know about the beasts that raid their homes.

Astrid was too far away from the rest of the group to really listen, instead brooding on Gobber's words. He was the first person on the entire island out of everyone to tell her that she was doing something wrong and it hurt., She could accept that the bloodlust and headstrong behaviour she had shown with the Deadly Nadder was unacceptable, she had thrown her protection away and launched into a kill strike on a dragon that was marked for training purposes. But Gobber's words had stung as sharply as if they had been a dagger's blade, and that gave Astrid pause.

She had tried to not sound or look deflated at his words, but it had shown. She didn't expect to be told that killing a dragon wasn't okay and the shock of it made her want to run away from everyone when it sank in. She needed to make her mark as soon as possible and if she couldn't do anything special then what would the future mean for her? One part of her wanted to scream that she should tell the advice to eat a dick while the other part of her counseled caution, that if she was singled out by everyone then she should listen and do what her elders said.

Everything's conflicted. Frustrated., Angry. Confused.

She almost killed Hiccup yesterday, the girl was so frightened and skinny. She could have broken her in half and...  
and...  
and...

And Astrid Hofferson could have ended Hiccup Haddock's life or seriously injured her because Astrid had been angry over something that happened in training, had she really been so angry that she was prepared to fully break someone? She barely ever talked to Hiccup or knew that she really existed as a person, getting Hiccup to sharpen her axe was the first real conversation that they ever had and now she felt pretty fucking guilty about it. It was fairly obvious at this point that getting her axe, shield, and armour repaired by the girl was a no go and she didn't even want to approach her to apologize. Thank Thor that Hiccup hadn't been at the meeting.

She should skip dinner and go home. Fuck feeling hungry or feigning any degree of sociability.

Astrid Hofferson won't be getting any sleep tonight.

And when she comes back from the Dragon Hunt, mother will force her to wear that stupid Kransen again.

Post taking care of herself was good for at least a few hours, the quivering between her legs stopped and Hiccup could stop thinking about sex or the lack of it while she was now free to focus on other things, such as making an artificial fin for Toothless.

And then the bad side came. The painful reminder that she would have to do what her fantasy girl Errika had done. Hiccup Haddock, daughter of Stoick Haddock the Vast, would have to perform naked in front of her father and sundry people she didn't know, and then she would have to fuck some guy that didn't know she existed until shortly before the arranged marriage. She would have to take somebody's penis and enjoy it, or look like she did, anyway. She wouldn't need to orgasm, at least, and she just hoped that nobody would notice she had faked it.

Probably the guy would be a chief's son or a rich business merchant or someone like that, father wouldn't settle for less.

If Stoick chose Dagur the Deranged, she'd rather fling herself off the cliffs and be eaten as Hiccup-seafood then have...that man.

He had pinned her down over a sailboat at a chief's gathering while all the others watched, her head went underwater and all she could feel was terror and suffocation as her lungs gave out and oxygen was replaced with water.

She came back running to daddy, crying and on the verge of the first of what would become many breakdowns and he had told her that nothing could be done as Dagur was a chief's son. She stopped even bothering to fight back later.

Shit, she broke the metal pin for Toothless's fin. Her heart rate had started spiking up and crashing down again, and she was going to relapse back into those days and nights where she spent all her time under the covers in complete distress.

She told herself to concentrate: Toothless's and his need to fly out of Berk and go back to wherever he came from has to override her needs first. She wouldn't be able to feed him tonight but tomorrow morning would have do, she'll bring him a big basket of fish, crabs, and eels from the private stocks. She had the key to the building, or well, dad did and no one would notice the missing stock of creatures.

Initially a wooden support structure seemed like a good idea for a prototype. The material was available in large quantities, easy to build and rig up and would allow her to quickly swap parts, even without practice she knew that wood would likely break instantly when subjected to the turns and high speed maneuvering that a Night Fury was capable of. The final version would have to be made from metal. Even as a not-fully-trained blacksmith, she physically slapped herself for thinking that wood might be a good idea for the stresses of a rig used in flying

Scrap metal would have to do for now. It's only a prototype after all and wouldn't expected to hold up for long.

It seemed easy enough: a strapped on joint section that would wrap halfway around the base of his tail and would act as a counterweight to whatever his new fin weighed, while the brown leather scraps were boiled and reinforced to be the replacement fin itself, all combined with multiple pins and rings to hold everything in place. It should be able to withstand at least a few test flights while she would inevitably work on adjustments and might even take it apart and craft a new one using bits of it along with the final materials she planned on using.

As long as Dad didn't come back early. Otherwise, things would get sticky.

She put the entire rigging on her bench in the middle of her personal workshop. There was more space now thanks to the Vikings having cleaned out the place of her various weapons; those had all gone into a disused shed.

Still, the more space the better, and the diagrams of catapults, bola throwing devices, and even a prototype metal rod launching machine were gone. Now they were being replaced by notes and drawings of the rough dimensions of the Night Fury with sketches and work-ups of her fin project. It was doubtful anyone would discover what she was up to; the village was bare of dragon-killing Vikings, and the goings-on at the forge were on the back burner for now while Gobber was busy with dragon training.

Now the prototype was finally done. It wasn't too heavy, she could definitely lug it over to the cove in one trip but that would mean going back a second time for the fish and seafood which Toothless would undoubtedly be more interested in.

The room was getting darker by the minute and groups of Vikings were making their way to the great hall or to their homes for evening meals. The gathering twilight slowly became more obvious until it bought Hiccup out of her stratagems and thoughts and she realized that she had a dinner date with Gobber.

One she had agreed to, and an event that her growling stomach started to painfully remind her of.

She hid the completed assembly under a vacant table in the middle of the room and walked to her house for dinner.

Stoick's chair at the table was left empty as a sign of respect, so Gobber had bought a spare chair for himself. The other chairs at the table were made for someone of Hiccup's size and there was zero way the blacksmith could fit in those. He had a spare key for the chief's home and had lit the large torches inside to make the largely empty ground floor a little more livable. He opened up the mead and water reserves and helped himself to a bit of both before going back to the main hall for the food. He had taken the best parts that would be reserved for the chief, true, but due to his status as being Stoick's best friend and the fact that he would be making sure Hiccup actually ate properly for once in her godforsaken life, he was able to take the best without murmur from any of the other Vikings.

That best being prime yak thighs, quality vegetables, and the rare pieces of fruit that traders were able to move in before the onset of winter, stuff that couldn't be normally found around Berk was always reserved for the chief and their family.

Gobber then sat around waiting for Hiccup after having exhausted amusing himself poking around his Chief's house. He marveled at how sparse the ground floor was though Stoick was a Chief of Berk and a rich man at that, he had few real possessions outside of physical money and battle-ready items, and while Gobber knew that the upstairs portion was different, that was Hiccup's place and unlike the forge, he didn't really have the right to go on and snoop around in her stuff. So he waited for the door to open and his doubtlessly late apprentice to stumble in and complain that she wasn't actually hungry only to recently stuff her face with food when he or Stoick would force her to How she didn't collapse most of the time was a mystery. And given that she hadn't even shown any signs of puberty past mood swings nor any of the various lady things that the eldar council loved to discuss, it was troubling.

Troubling that Hiccup was also long overdue to get married. While everyone else had shed their gangly limbs, freckles, and awkward hairstyles, she was still stuck looking too young to be an adult. Not to mention that Hiccup shared the same infamous Haddock stubbornness that Stoick threw around and the two traits slapped together made for...

Well, made for a Hiccup.

Still Gobber loved her as if she were his own child, and if he had to force feed her to make the girl's body grow, then he would gladly do it. He had watched over her since Val died and had stepped in as a father figure and a temporary parent when Stoick had to do chiefing, sometimes that meant coddling the child for months at a time and treating her as his own.

Like a daughter.

That for all of her flaws, social awkwardness, stubbornness, inability to reason with the rest of Berk, and complete lack of tact with her own age group, Gobber still loved her dearly. She was smart, curious, and had a knack for building her items of her own design, creating plans and forging tools and weaponry, and she was already a far better smith than she was aware of being.

In all honesty, Gobber was proud of Hiccup.

"So, how did your day go, get any work on those projects of yours done?" Gobber asked as he reached for a chicken leg and ate it in three bites before downing a glass of mead, he had been waiting for Hiccup and had prepared a meal that he and Stoick used to devour in a single sitting, splitting various pieces of meat, fruit, and vegetables between two huge plates on opposite sides of the only table with multiple glasses of mead scattered between.

"It went okay, I guess." Hiccup responded diffidently. "I, uh, worked out some of the kinks in that shield. Turns out that exposure to dragon heat can burn fingers so I applied insulation and now that heat isn't a factor anymore". Well, that part was true but she did that yesterday and talking to Gobber about her design of a prosthetic tail for a dragon? She's not _that_ stupid.

She took a bite out of a yak leg and sipped some water.

"Good to know, Hiccup! Looks like ye father will be proud of your new weapons." Gobber grinned enthusiastically and devoured his second leg.

"Dad would be proud? Wouldn't he be disappointed at how dragon training has gone?" Hiccup queries, feeling slightly anxious and a little confused as to why someone who had usually screamed and had threatened to tear apart her inventions would suddenly be approving of her creations.

"Okay, look, Hiccup" Gobber sighed and set his mead down with a knowing expression on his face that they have had this conversation many times before.

"That shield you created? From where I've been sitting, it's dragon proof: it hasn't cracked or splintered at all from being hit by a gronckle AND a Deadly Nadder".

"But it's me, Gobber. I'm the screw up who can't craft anything without destroying the village." Hiccupgrumbled and turned away, reminded of all the times that she had tried to help Berk and everything she did either backfired or was rejected by the other Vikings because it wasn't traditional.

"No, that's in the past. But it's so much more different now; what you made is a sign that you are growing and any Viking chief would be proud to learn that his daughter crafted something that will protect his people and save lives.'' Gobber interrupted, then smiled and easily extended a giant paw over to pat Hiccup on the back reassuringly .

"And you were the last one to be knocked out and came in second place in both training sessions, so there's nothing to really complain about your performance, Hiccup. No matter what the others say, they can't deny those things."

Hiccup nodded hesitantlyand the two ate in silence, with nothing more to say about that topic which had often led to shouting matches between themselves and Stoick. Often Gobber would come to Hiccup's defense about a project that showed promise but went wrong. And other times, Hiccup would find herself arguing alone against the two men in her life when her famous Haddock stubbornness had gotten her into trouble.

At the very least, today had been productive. She was eating, which meant that nobody would bother her about it for at least two days. She had apparently proved that her shield was dragon proof or at least resistant, Toothless's prosthetic was ready for tomorrow, and while she would have preferred to take it to the dragon tonight, it was too dark outside and the forest's predators and other large wildlife would beout and about, so the dragon would have to wait another day.

And...today had been depressing as well.

Astrid pretty much hated her now, Hiccup believed, and while she figured she never had a chance to begin with that beautiful blonde, it still hurt and mades her stomach tighten. The chance of eating her entire plate of food became more remote every time her brain flashed a memory of the incident earlier today where she had been flung against awall and almost cried and had a panic attack, all so she wouldn't have to see a dragon get killed or injured and because she had made the decision to let Toothless go and then feed the dragon and now she'd made an actual piece of flying equipment that will hopefully work and let the dragon fly away forever to never come back and, and...

Wait, her mind suddenly said to her. What did dragons eat? Fish? Mutton? Eggs?

"Gobber what do dragons eat?" Hiccupasked without thinking, the question popping into her head and rolling out of her mouth as quickly as the mental note she made when she first fed Toothless when he outright refused a larger piece of meat than a fish came back.

"Fish, mostly, I think?" Gobber paused, humming for a second and then chewing on his sixth leg before scratching his head and continuing. "They also eat mutton but the ones in the training area have only had fish."  
"The training dragons don't eat anything but fish?" asked Hiccup.  
"Aye" said Gobber as he reached for his seventh chicken leg.

"I mean, dragons on raids eat fish right? They eat them out of fishing nets?". Hiccup pursued the thought.

"Yeah" Gobber replied through a mouthful of her memories and going through all the times Hiccup had ever been through dragon raids on the village and observing them eating, she'd never seen a single dragon eat anything other than fish. Even on the rare occasion she'd snuck up on a Nadder that had stolen sheep from Sven's farm, it didn't eat the bleating sheep, it just grabbed the animalin its claws and flew off.

"So they've never eaten mutton, only fish, as far as anyone has seen". She probed.

"Pretty much, they just carry them off to eat the beasties somewhere else". Gobber replied.

"Have the dragons in the training area actually eaten mutton?".  
"No, we've never fed them it, and I know what yer going to say. Mutton is expensive and we can't feed prime stock to a bunch of training dragons when fish has done the job of keeping them alive" Gobber answered the question she had popping into her head before she could speak, and he leaned back in his chair, digesting his meal.

Hiccup nodded and went back to absently stabbing at her food, a question growing in her mind louder than any noise from her that chilled and made her curious at the same time, and something that no one had either questioned, found the time to ask, or ever figured out.

If the dragons didn't eat anything but fish, as Toothless had clearly showed preference towards the fish and disregarded the mutton she had offered from her hand, then what exactly were the dragons doing with all the chickens, sheep, and Yaks that they steal on every raid? If they weren't going to be used as food, what possible reason did they have to carry them off?

The _Njörðr's _captain's room was located at the back of the ship., Normally reserved for just Stoick or a trusted lieutenant, it was filled to the brim with every important fleet captain or officer of Berk's outbound warfleet. The flagship's immense size allowed them to hold meetings and gatherings in it that would crowd a regular longship. Candles topped the room's four corners and shone light into the otherwise dark interior of the ship before the morning light would inevitably penetrate the decks.

It had held such a meeting a short while ago, with the sun facing north. Turning south as the decision was made, Stoick had suffered a political defeat and would likely face consequences once the fleet was back on Berk. The morning of day number four had shone light on his battered fleet;, early yesterday evening, they had travelled into a new unmapped area with rocks, shallow reefs, and other hazards to impede them. Some ships were damaged, but nothing too serious.

But then they had encountered one of the worst storms in seafaring history, a mammoth barrage of gigantic waves, waterspouts, and a constant battering by the elements themselves started to tear away equipment and toss experienced crewmembers overboard like they were naught but flotsam swept away by the tide.

Ten ships that had survived the furious dragon attacks for years were lost, eighty irreplaceable warriors were gone too, either swallowed up by the sea or killed when their ships foundered or were ripped apart by the seas.

It had ended eventually. After eight hours of non-stop destruction, they had reached a calm spot where they briefly licked their wounds and made hasty repairs. Stoick's warfleet gathered for his ships' captains and his lieutenents to hold a meeting. There the wary men and women made their case to their chief, and he had reluctantly agreed. They were going to head home and this unexplored area of the map would be written off as impassable. The ships would be replaced as quickly as possible by the master builders and those who had lost their lives would be posthumously buried with the full honors benefitting a Viking who had given their life in battle.

It would be a three day voyage home, hopefully by as calm and uneventful a journey as they had previously travelled.

Stoick didn't want to retreat. After the meeting, he swore to his brother Spitelout privately that during the chaos he had managed to catch a glimpse of a huge flock of dragons above the rocks and further in. He wanted to pursue them and destroy the nest inside, but it was too late. He had agreed to a retreat and to try again in a year's time when the dragon attacks would end on schedule and another way to the nest would be found.

He hoped Hiccup would still be alive with all limbs intact, that she had at least managed to not embarrass herself and their family name in front of the chiefdom of Berk. He would destroy that nest next year and end the threat to all the men and women who he had sworn to protect, no matter how bad the political and personal defeat this year was.

He had some hope for Hiccup, enough that she would find herself and become the strongest Viking that the world had ever known, that she would lead Berk to victory over those who would do it harm, and that when his time was up, he would go peacefully knowing that everything he had done would be carried over and made better a tenfold by her.

Valka had strongly believed that and even though she was gone, Stoick believed it too, no matter how bad things seemed sometimes.

A/N

For reference notes on what Hiccup looks like, one of the first few images of "female Hiccup" has a comparison of 15y/r and RTTE. That's the look im going for.  
Thank you to Shipvetraxsara for the review! and a super big hug for the all of the favourites and followers! I never expected to get this far and since its my first fic, well happy times are ahead. I shall strive for a more consistent upload as this took almost 2months to get through and isnt acceptable, regardless I hope this chapter maintained the same rough standard that the previous ones did and I look forward to writing more!.

With special thanks to.

ASATanker  
Moonhoof  
MHBones  
Headdie.


	6. Taint (6) Redux

Taint

The wind around his face felt painfully slow when it eventually crept into the hole he had been forced into. He missed diving headlong just a few metres above the ground at speeds that others would either be scared of or call him insane for trying, warning him that he would eventually miss that precise instant where he had to open his wings and stop the death dive. But he never missed, with either his enviable flight skills or his plasma blasts that rent and blew everything to pieces he took a dislike to. Other dragons, ships, everything. He was invincible.

Well, "was" invincible. It's been three day and night cycles since he was thrown downfrom his domain and forced to walk on the ground with no hope of being able to simply fly away from his problems and settle on another island. A missing tailfin doomed him the very moment he felt the impact of the weapon shearing a vital body part off. He could lose a leg or maybe two, he had four unlike the other dragons but a wing? A tailfin? Dead; he should be dead. He screamed when it happened and he still desperately wanted to scream now at the unfairness of having to stay alive. But if he did scream, then the humans would hear him and then they would definitely kill him, slowly, painfully, like the other dragons that were captured and forced to be live bait for the tinierhumans. Not even Hiccup would be able to save him then and while he would kill a few, it wouldn't matter.

Ironically, though he wished for death, the thought of it terrified him. Yet there was a small part in the back of his mind that nagged and poked him whenever he tried to distract himself from those thoughts by running at seagulls and watching them fly away, or by annoying the small fish that he couldn't eat in the nearby lagoon.

He was hungry and tired and losing weight slowly; the single fish Hiccup had brought him was a nice gesture but she said she would feed him yesterday and now it was tomorrow. Was it an innocent mistake? Did she forget? Or was it intentional, to watch him suffer and then die so the others could take him, a growing portion of paranoia nagged at him. Wait - Movement!

Somewhere behind him, his two large ears can pick up the sound of something moving back there, turning his head and focusing on his hearing he narrows the sound down to two legs walking quickly. He gets up and readies a plasma blast. Two legs means human and they must know where he is, the footsteps are bounding, heavy, breaking twigs and crushing leaves while small animals run away. It's got to be a hunter, they've found him and he has to get ready. Smaller ears, normally inactive unlike the always alert bigger ones, begin to feed him information on everything in his immediate area. The humidity, temperature of the sea and air, and the fact that it'll rain later tonight. They can even guide him in pitch black darkness where he can't see a single thing.

Lowering his front and raising his rear, whatever's moving is coming down that small gap between those two boulders and the last thing they'll ever see is a nameless dragon that's going to kill them. He'll die too but it's worth it. He readies for his leap onto the foe.

"Toothless!".

A Name? His name! The name she gave him! Hiccup calls him that! It IS Hiccup! She looks better in that familiar green tunic today than when he last saw her. Her arms are no longer as covered up, with a healthier glow to her face and skin, her scent is clean and fresh and she must have bathed and actually eaten, he can even smell her fresh hair. The shortened morning rays look good on her, even with the soft ground turning hard and the once leafy trees preparing for winter.

And her hands have fully healed from the burn, likely from a Gronckle.

"Toothless!" She shouts and looks happy to see him.

Automatically he settles down on his haunches as he sees her familiar red flushed face. She is carrying a bucket in one hand and a strange contraption in the other, the morning sun reflects off her face as she steps out of the shadows between the boulders . The bucket is more interesting though, it's got food. Fish food. Good food for a hungry Night Fury.

He cocks his head as she lays down the bucket and then kicks its contents on the ground. He watches as the tasty food comes out, the strange thing is laid on the ground for now, and he's too hungry to care about that though. The flood is fish. It smells even better and he noses towards it, his starving limbs propelling him forward to forgive Hiccup for the delay and let him stuff his face.

She reaches into the pile and waves something at him that makes his blood freeze. He backs away quickly as he smells and then sees the poison eel that was masked by the smell of the fish, instinctively letting out a growl and prepping his wings for flight. Hiccup gets the message and throws the one bastard fish he can't eat or be near away. Better. She isn't trying to poison him, he realizes.

"Hungry are we, bud?"

He nods and licks his lips hungrily.

"I'm sorry for the eel, I didn't know you guys disliked them". Hiccup apologizes with a hand scratching the back of her head as she backs away quickly from the bucket. He circles the spilled bucket, sniffing out any other suspiciousfood-that-is-not-food. "We've got some nice salmon and some icelandic cod. I took them out of the frozen bucket earlier so it's all fresh for you and I guess you deserve an apology for leaving you alone yesterday when I promised that I would b-be b-back. I'm so sorry, Toothless." Hiccup stutters and blushes, looking away.

He warbles back. While he can't speak human, he understands. He wants to let her know that it's okay now, she made a mistake and apologised for it and it's hard to do anything better than giving a starving Night Fury food.

He looks over the bucket's spilled contents, the smell of the fish filling his nostrils. Practically begging to be eaten and end up in his empty belly. He can't resist any longer and scoops up a portion into his mouth, hungrily and loudly chewing everything and anything that tastes or smells like fish. His ears pick up Hiccup's quiet footsteps as she picks up the weird looking thing and steps to the left, around and behind him. He doesn't care, the food is good and filling.

He crouches on all fours to ease the passage of the fish into his stomach. He may be hungry but remembering that time the Nightmare ate too much and was flat on the ground for hours on end, as it struggled to process its overloaded belly. The Nightmare's groans as the mass of food shifted in its distended guts still ring in his memory. He can also feel something digging into his tail and he shifts slightly as he continues eating.

"Shit! Stay still and eat the good stuff!" he can hear her mutter quietly, but his ears pick up everything.

She puts pressure on his tail and then holds it to the ground, as an amused Toothless raises its tail again only to hear Hiccup swear loudly and lightly slap his single tailfin. He is halfway through the pile of food when something on his tail constricts a little and tightens. A snap, followed by a click. Then it really tightens on his tail and his wings drop, as strangely it feels like he's got his ripped limb back again…

"Done! now to just stand back an-"

He automatically crouches low, and Hiccup falls back onto his body but he feels in balance now for the first time since he was hurt. Could it be? The thrill and desire to fly again overrides his every instinct to stay put. He wants, no, he _**needs**_ this more than anything. Even a simple glide will do wonders for his state of mind, and opening his massive wings to their fullest extent, he jumps forward a few metres into the air. The backblast of air shakes a nearby tree into dropping its remaining leaves on top of a dismayed squirrel.

Somewhere, faintly through the wind finally rushing through his ears, he can hear Hiccup screaming but pays no attention as he left her back on the ground in the lagoon. He crosses the treeline at least twenty metres above his starting point with an easy flap of his wings, his tail feels weird and strange back there but he doesn't mind, his powerful body and muscles can take it. And he's _flying _again!

He drifts off course for a few seconds, his tailfins twitching with a betraying movement and he almost hits a tree but the fins right themselves and he does a barrel roll to prove himself.

Higher and higher he climbs, above the tallest tree and then the island seems so much smaller. The biggest houses and boats are naught but specks and he, Toothless the Night Fury, is **back** in his element as king of the skies, every bit of anguish and pain draining away.

He then makes a loop down to the lagoon with the intent to pass it with a victory run and to say goodbye to Hiccup but as he draws near to where his amazed vision can scan everything in two seconds, she's not there. He makes a second pass and still can't find it dawns on him.

He opens his legs and looks below his body to see a terrified and wind-blasted girl clutching tightly around the contraption that made up an artificial tailfin, _his _artificial tailfin. He blinks and she looks over and opens her mouth, but she is making no sounds. He panics and loses control, limbs flailing.

He crashes into the pond, curling his wings against his body and turning himself over to protect her with an embrace at the last possible moment as they fall into the water, forming a wave that barrels into the shores of the lagoon as the rough lagoon bottom bruises and rends at his body in a few non-critical places that will heal soon.

Is Hiccup okay? Did he hurt her? Was his need to fly again too much for the girl to handle?

He rolls and lurches out of the water, ends up on shore and gulps, heart beating a little faster than normal with a whole body shiver as he rolls over onto his side and opens his enclosed limbs up to reveal a battered but not broken brunette who coughs and then vomits a bit of water out.

He didn't hurt her. Good, good. He wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he did, not after receiving the gift of flight she had just given him.

She slid off him and gathered herself onto her knees, taking a moment to get her bearings before looking over with a sad tinge in her eyes and getting up on her feet, looking away to some boring rocks because she can't bear to look at Toothless. He gets up on all fours and slowly moves over to her, that lovely clean skin of hers ruined and torn in some places by hanging on his tail or the wind hitting her repeatedly. The euphoria of flight drained from his system as he tried to nuzzle her back and shoulders but she remained stiff.

"I'm sorry, Toothless, you can't fly out of here. I-I thought I could help with a prosthetic but..." She stopped and then breathed in, clenching her fists and steadying herself to look him in the eyes with a depressed, waning fire in her voice. "I couldn't do it, I gave you false hope and uselessly wasted your time and I".

He shushed her with a face lick and brushes a paw around her midsection, pulling the skinny brunette in close embrace. She softened into him and repeated a self-deprecating line to herself that he could hear. He wanted to tell her the fault was his overeagerness and that probably broke it, that it's okay to make a mistake. Since he can't talk, a hug will have to do.

"So whatcha think it'll be today?" Snoutlout mused idly to Tuffnutt as they stood together away from Astrid in the arena.

"No clue, but whatever comes they'll be running AWAY FROM THIS DEADLY WEAPON" Tuffnutt grinned as he flexed his arms in a pose imitating much more well-muscled Vikings. Astrid scoffed at that, remembering how terrible the blonde boy and his sister were at fighting dragons.

She wasn't in much of a mood for talking or interacting with people today. They had all met up in the hall for breakfast before heading to the arena for today's dragon training. Gobber had said nothing except to not bring their weapons. Just themselves and their usual clothes/armour. That gave the twenty minute walk an air of paranoid suspicion as the old blacksmith's teaching style was enough to set anyone on edge and not being able to fight back was just - scary. And there were a bunch of water filled buckets sitting around near the entrance to the arena.

So far there had been nothing but idle chatter and occasional small conversations, except for Astrid, of course. She had more important things to worry about, like where Hiccup was and how to or more likely try to apologise. Mentally predicting how it would go wasn't helping her low mood either. "Hi Hiccup I'm sorry for slamming you against the wall yesterday and almost beating you to a pulp, how about we make up and you craft me an invincible shield." Yeah, that would go as well as trying to make a typical Viking not drink a pint of mead set in front of them.

She tried to busy herself by talking to Ruffnutt and the topic quickly went to boys , with Ruffnutt expressing her borderline disturbing interest in big over-muscled guys while Astrid felt like she found the opposite to be more attractive. Then again, Astrid had only ever seen two other non-family people naked (and they were both pretty attractive) on their wedding night. And Ruffnutt kept going on and on about those fascinating muscles. Ugh.

The last decent conversation she had that wasnt about dragons, sex, or something totally mundane was with Hiccup. Who she had managed to completely burn her bridges with.

Gobber arrived, happily swinging his ridiculously large hammer by its strap like it weighed nothing.

"Morning kiddos, I trust everyone is prepared and ready for today's wonderful adventure into the life of a true Viking!". And he's suspiciously happy too. That was always an unintentional sign from Gobber to be cautious about the day's lesson.

The rest of the group slowly nodded and Astrid simply went along with it, Gobber directing them to the buckets with an easy silence coating the air, all light conversation now over as they picked the buckets up and went back to the usual spot, all five of them. Not a sixth today apparently. Gobber didn't seem to mind. That also seemed slightly suspicious to Astrid or maybe she was just overthinking things. Then again it would be better if Hiccup didn't come, like she had an accident getting out of bed or something and so Astrid wouldn't have to make eye contact or stand within at least fifty metres or talk. She dreaded talking.

"So, today we'll be fighting two dragons, the Terrible Terror and the-".

"The fucking how many?" Snotlout interrupted at the top of his lungs with a collective gasp coming out from the others, nobody had said anything about having **two **of them to fight at the same time when the previous fights with just one dragon had knocked out most of the group.

She was surprised as well, but no wonder Gobber was happy. He loved seeing them all suffer and run away in terror. Not her though, she wouldn't run, not today. She could turn this around and prove herself after yesterday. Two dragons, possibly two terrors would be doable, small, agile and quick. She could do that. Gobber coughed to get the attention of the students.

"And, thank you Snotlout. The Terrible Terror and the Hideous Zippleback!, a deadly and smelly two-headed dragon." That wasn't what Astrid was expecting, a giant two-headed dragon bigger than the two they had facedbefore, combined?

"So what are the buckets for?" Astrid asked. Gobber looked over and pointed to one of the metal doors, presumably holding said dragon inside. And then pointed again to the bucket.

"The Zippleback creates a cloud of explosive mixture with one head and lights it with the other, so your job is to put its light out with ya bucket!. Question is, which head?."

"And the Terror's size?" asked Astrid.

"It's kind of like a cat that hates you, and it's a dragon."

"Okay." said Astrid with confidence even if she felt dubious.

She would have her chance. Pick a head and douse the Zippleback with the bucket. If she missed the properhead then she'd grab someone else's bucket from them and douse the other. And the Terror, well, if it was cat sized, then she would just smack it with an axe or something. Maybe yet another bucket. Easy.

"Hey Gobber." A small and soft nasally voice rang out around the arena and Astrid froze in her tracks hoping **that **voice belonged to someone else. Someone other than the chief's daughter and hopefully not the chief's daughter with potentially broken ribs.

"Hiccup, where've you been? Good Thor, what happened to you?" Gobber rushed over, abandoning the lesson as Astrid looked behind him to see the blacksmith cradling Hiccup in his arms, doting on her like any parent would. It was somewhat distressing to see, because of the huge disparity in size between the blacksmith and his assistant. .And Hiccup looked like shit. Yesterday she looked pretty terrible but now? There were scratches all over her forearms and bloody tears in her clothes. Ouch. It hurt just to look at her.

"You shouldn't be in that forest so much." clucked Gobber apprehensively as he stood back and examined her bedraggled appearance, then hugged her again.

"I'm fine." retorted Hiccup.

"Why are you here?" asked Gobber. "I told you you didn't have to train today."

"I wanted to be." Hiccup insisted.

"I'm pulling you out if you do something stupid, Hiccup." warned Gobber.

"Fine, Gobber." was all Hiccup said, pulling away.

Hiccup leftGobber's arms and picked up a stray bucket before making her over to the rest of the teens, stopping at a fair distance away and looking at anywhere but Astrid. Astridf did the same, grimacing and fidgeting, looking anywhere but at Hiccup. Her heart rate was increasing slightly as the awkwardness and her plan to do something got thrown out of the window and stomped on by a yak before a heap of flaming dragon shit from out of the sky landed on it. Well, if that _had _happened, it would have at least been spectacular to watch. Astrid just felt depressed about the prospects of her plan.

The idea of apologising was probably long dead now. Honestly, she didn't feel the courage or the nerve to even try. Trying to speak or look over at Ruffnutt made Astrid glance at Hiccup who glanced back and then they both looked away. She'd rather deal with those dragons right now.

Gobber said the dragon's gas was smelly. He was either lying or had made a giant understatement. The arena stank, her clothes stank, even the water in the buckets stank. If she had better eyesight then maybe she could have made out the others who had all split into groups of two. Astrid had gotten paired with Ruffnutt of course, any of the boys would have slowed her down, or in Snotlout's case, hit on her.

Now if she could only see something. The thick green mist that the Zippleback had either snorted or farted out made seeing anything that wasn't within hitting distance impossible, and finding the huge green dragon that Gobber had pointed outbriefly before it blanketed the entire area with mist was difficult too. She had gotten glimpses of its annoyingly large form before it ran away and the sheer size of it meant that the sound of its thumping footfalls echoingaround didn't help either.

She had run into the other "teams" too. Snotlout and Tuffnutt had screamed when they first bumped into them, throwing water over Ruffnut and claiming she was a dragon and then apologising by saying that both the girls had dragonesque figures. They apparently didn't understand why the apology wasn't accepted when Astrid thumped them both over the head with a fist.

Asrid and Ruffnut encountered Hiccup and Fishlegs too, the boy literally droning on and on about the Zippleback to anyone within earshot and Astridhad looked at the sky when her and Hiccup's gaze met. She had quickly backpedalled away after a few seconds blushing in shame.

And then there was the Terrible Terror, slightly bigger than a housecat and had tried to bite Tuffnutt's nose off when he laughed at it. Karma. She didn't see or hear much of either Tuffnut or the Terrible Terror afterwards. Other than faint screaming.

"Astrid, stop" Ruffnutt hissed, putting an arm in front to block her forward movement.

"What is it?" She whispered back, holding her bucket ready like it was a shield.

"It's..."

"It's what?" Astrid whispered.

"...Right in front of us" Fuck. Fucking fuckity fucking fuck.

The Zippleback's huge ass and tail was even bigger up close, even with the gas mist thing hiding a good portion of the beast, its massive form towering over their heads and its_ heads _looked like they could hit the metal chain roof of the arena if it stood on its hindlegs.

Its tail swished from side to side slowly, the tip coming near the tips of their boots as Astrid held her breath and motioned for Ruffnutt to slowly walk with her to the front of it, the other girl giving her a "Are you crazy" look.

"We're behind it, we need to be in front to throw the buckets." Astridspoke as softly as she could and stepped over the tail, mouthing for the other girl to go in the opposite direction. Both of them slowly coming closer to the Zippleback as Ruffnutt disappeared from view into the mist; together they could dose both heads simultaneously and end the session at once.

She found the body, its hideous green scales sticking out like sore thumbs amongst the other slightly ess-green skin. The stench up close was even worse and she was on the fire spitting side. If she had had her axe then she could take its leg or wing off and render it helpless.

Then lop off its head, or the left one, anyway. The head that was sSticking out past its torso and snakily glancing around, as she stepped quietly under it. She's so close to getting out in front and chucking the water on its disgusting smelly face...

Then it started moving again and she quickly bounced out of the way as a huge leg stamped right on where she had just beenpreviously was, close enough to see the Zippleback in its entirety as it lowered itself to the ground, both heads practically grazing the surface of the arena as the mist cleared away slightly to reveal Hiccup's and Fishleg's terrified faces, the two barely clutching their buckets as one of the heads almost poked into them.

Fishlegs lobbed his bucket at the head with a heavy clunk, dousing it with water completely and the dragon sniffled as the bucket fell back down and then rolled off into the mist.

"Good job Fishlegs! Wrong head though!" How did Gobber see that wondered Astrid.

The doused head sprayed gas in the boy's direction as it whipped back and forth, hitting him in the face and then the butt as he ranoff. It's just Hiccup facing the Zippleback now. Astrid wanted make a sound or do something to help but she couldn't move, it felt like she was locked into place just staring at the little brunette up against the twin curling heads of the Zippleback as the gas from the wet head surrounded her while small sparks of fire began to come out of the other head.

Hiccup tried next but failed miserably as the water missed and hit the Zippleback in the torso instead The dragon reared backand the girl landed on her butt, scrambling away as the Zippleback triumphantly leaned forward over her.

"Hiccup!" Astrid managed to scream, finding herself running forward bucket in hand. Even if she can't apologise, she won't let the other girl get eaten, it's Astrid'sfault for not getting the dragon in the first place anyway.

The neck blocks her sight but she can make it. And then there's a loud squeal. Two squeals.

The dragon suddenly rocks backwards and Astridhas to drop the bucket and dive out of the way as the Zippleback frantically backs up. Hiccup is standing up with something in her fur jacket as she calls out at the cowering bulk.

"Back off, go away and think about what you've done!" She strode forward, past Astrid's shocked expression and numb body. As the blonde girl stared in disbelief, Hiccup locked the dragon back in its cage and dusted her hands off.

"I've, uh, got to go." Hiccup quickly scampered off before Astrid can speak..

"What-what just happened?" Astrid looked at the metal door, to the spot where Hiccup previously was about to get eaten, and then back again to the door. Seriously what. Hiccupwas in trouble and Astrid was going to run forward and save her, throw the water on the dragon and watch it be useless and defenseless. Then she would take care of the Terrible Terror and establish herself after yesterday's debacle.

Now Hiccup was gone and that plan was out too, the girl who had struggled to fight dragons and just barely survived not getting set on fire had somehow managed to drive the nastiest one of them they had seen yet back into its cage without a weapon.

Glancing around, Astrid could see that no one else was interested in catching the Terror now, everyone, even Gobber, had that same look of confusion that she did. And to be honest. She wasn't interested in the Terror anymore either.

Snotlout, who had been shouting something mean or stupid at Hiccup at least every two days had that trademark grin wiped off his face, now wearing a scowling expression of twins, previously almost coming to blows over the dragon figure comment, had their hands wrapped around each other's throats when Hiccup cowed the dragon and now it was almost funny to see them locked in time, eyes staring at where the Zippleback and then Hiccup had previously been. Fishlegs had been the farthest away and stood cowering behind Gobber.

Gobber had screamed loudly just before it happened. In her peripheral vision, Astrid had seen something warp his normally calm or amused expression into one of fear and he had rushed forward as fast as his little peg leg would let him. Now he was frozen into place as well. And Astrid? She could, no, should have been the one to rescue Hiccup. It had taken at least a minute to process but she had felt either shock or jealousy, or probably both, that she hadn't shouted or whatever Hiccup had done at the Zippleback to make it flee in terror.

~~~~~~~  
And that's another slot in the chapter list whuey!.

I'd like to thank my new beta readers for editing, suggestions and knocking me over on the head when it came to my constant use of paragraphs.

Many thanks to (fanfiction beta readers)  
Kayda-Starr and Puffin777

And of course to ASATanker who actually beats me with suggestions on everything! (ow)

Sorry for the delay in getting this read through. Looks good, and now I'm wondering what Hiccup is up to.

Fanfiction: Thank you to Puffin777 for the review! and Im glad that you decided to help out with the beta read :)

A03: Diana! They are cute!:D Ive always thought that Tooth/Hiccup friendship was a lot more deep than what happened in the movies/tv, Toothless is a highly intelligent dragon and not a pet and id like to shift him from the "mans best friend" sterotype to being someone on his own.

xXxQueenofDragonsXx, i like it to! To be honest I havent really seen any same-sex hiccstrid relationships, I feel thats its a huge missed opportunity

MerryLilHobbit, wow that review! Holy crap I dont know what to say, I do agree that there is a stunning lack of queer/bisexuality and same sex features in the HTTYD fanfiction, and that being married off is pretty chilling, to someone you dont know or hate it can have the potential to basically ruin your life and I dont blame Astrid or Hiccup for why they feel the way they do, Hiccup tends to be more insular and holds it in while Astrid is letting that anger out physically, a interesting dynamic! I have actually written out the ending and this will be a slow burn fic so im not going to have them fall in love immediately during/after the first movie. So its gonna be a long ride^^


	7. Attempt (7)

Coming Out Chapter 7: Attempt

He had worked extremely hard to get this far, starting out in a small company that served at the wills of Jarls' and Chiefs' subordinates to perform minor and insulting talks to becoming, in time, their own ginormous nation state. Able to dictate terms to those same Jarls and their lackeys who had thought of him as a simple errand boy, now second to one Drago Bludvist. Drago Bludvist, who rarely gave commands, content to let his subordinates carry on with their own wills, which gave him a wide latitude to accomplish his assignments.

And he? Viggo Grimborn? He had plans of his own. The first was a restructuring of the dragon hunters organization to promote those loyal only to him and to his brother Ryker, then came support from Drago himself who provided better ships and soldiers. With years of hard work and administrative hell came the prize.

His own ring of islands, each a fortress and a clan unto itself. All his. Almost three hundred ships, including longships and Drago's massive floating fortress, and, of course, seven thousand men and women to crew them, followed by serfs and dragon slaves. Each island hewed to his plan and now it was ready.

And at the centre of the nordic world's countless islands, chiefdoms, and empires was Viggo's massive military buildup, and at the centre of that? Just a little tent with a map of the Barbaric Archipelago, a backwater place containing not much of importance. Neither resources or manpower was in good supply there, and for all intents and purposes Viggo and his "master" would have simply moved on to other richer areas but this little slice of the world contained something few other places had.

In Ryker's terms, a fuck ton of dragons.

"Brother, the fleet has completed its preparations to set sail for the nest". Announced Ryker as he moved his way into the tent from the outside, his armour and clothes drenched wet from the thunderstorm raging outside.

"Good. Have the captains been made aware of the importance of this campaign?" Viggo asked as he continued to look at various points and copies of the map of his table, shifting little miniatures of viking armies and fleets on said table, his own forces in black figures, his allies or neutrals as white and enemies as red.

"They have. The queen will be ours and Drago will get his slaves. The rest will be either sold off to buyers or used as materials".

"Excellent".

The two brothers stood in silence for a while, Ryker watching his brother move three particular white pieces across the Barbaric Archipelago. One a fleet and an army both were moved from island to island, slowly knocking other pieces out of the game while the other, just a fleet, lost some ships after going in a diagonal line past natural hazards and other chiefdoms before heading back home. Curious.

"You've been moving those three around for a while. What gives brother?" Ryker asked, pointing a fat meaty finger at the fleet and army and then at the lone fleet.

"Those two? Ah. The Beserker Tribe under one very bloody Dagur, and the third is the fleet of Hooligans commanded by Stoick the Vast". Viggo grinned, holding each of the pieces in turn up to Ryker as if they were actually real.

"What's so special about them?".

"A puzzle, dear brother." replied Viggo. Ryker folded his arms and raised an eyebrow.

"Both were once allies but now sit in a cold war of sorts, the Berserkers under Oswald and the Berks under Stoick had been previously the most powerful of allies, but now with Dagur having murdered his father and the boy's extremely bad blood with Stoick's weak daughter, it is very likely that the two tribes will be at war soon."

"How does that affect us?" asked Ryker as he took off his soaked cloak.

"Dear brother, it affects us more than you can know. Dagur is threatening to undermine the stability of the region. He has pillaged and raped his way through at least six tribes so far. With the loss of so many dragon killers in the region, this will eventually lead to only a few southern factions, which are too far away from the dragons, and Dagur's holdings themselves. Leaving Berk as the sole defense against the local dragon nest and, eventually, in the path of the Beserkers."

Ryker pulled up a chair and sat opposite his brother. That made it easier to simply talk to the man and Ryker's height and bulk made standing the small tent a pain anyway. Ryker picked up the Berserker pieces and went through the same motion his brother did, knocking out various tribes in a straight line, the line narrowing towards the island of Berk. So why was Berk's main and only fleet going in the opposite direction?

"It doesn't make any sense". He grunted.

"The Hooligan fleet's travels, dear brother?" smiled Viggo.

"Yes, if they're going to war, why is Stoick's fleet moving away from the Berserkers? That's leaving his island completely undefended as well as heading into nowhere, the nest is at Helheim's Gate, literally the furthest place away from his ships!"

Viggo chuckled, smirking.

"Okay, what's so funny?" asked Ryker, placing the Berserker fleet and army back on the table.

"It's quite clear to me that Stoick has no idea where the nest is, we might as well be watching a snake attempt to bite its own tail. But it does have its own advantages and disadvantages for us". Viggo explained as he brought more miniature pieces from a nearby maces and talons box and placed them outside of the two vying powers on the map.

"How so? Don't we let them just kill each other and then conquer the rest like we've always done?" Ryker asked, eyeing the new development on the map.

"A good question. Why hasn't the world's second largest organisation simply stormed in and held the two biggest local powers at swordpoint? While we have the men, the ships and material to do so, why not? It's because of the message that will be sent by how we do it, dear brother". Viggo placed Stoick's fleet back at Berk and let Dagur's forces engulf the surrounding islands before letting the two come to a head.

"We need them to weaken each other first of natural causes, no artificial ones. The two main players are Dagur. A psychotic madman in charge of a land based army, perhaps the most powerful in the region. But his land and resources are thin, possessing a stagnating population with zero experience in dragon fighting. Not to mention his continuing drive to move forward while everything falls apart behind him." The leader of the hunters then started knocking more pieces off the table and removing castles and other markers off Beserker island.

"His personal position is also even more unstable. No woman will ever be willing to mate with him, virtually guaranteeing no successor. The lack of dragon fighting experience will make any Dagur-controlled region very likely to fall either via dragons or simply social and economic collapse. Leaving us to happily swoop in and become liberators with whatever's left of the population on our side." Viggo replaced each of the fallen white pieces with his own in turn. "Not against us, as would be the case if we directly interfered beforehand". Viggo articulated, his plans for the future laid bare to his brother's eyes and ears.

"And then we have Stoick. A forty year old man in a business where anyone barely reaches even middle age; in charge of a political mess, where his inability to find the nest will case unrest and doubt in his rule. A situation made even worse with the presence of his intelligent but very unviking-like daughter, who will not be accepted by the population after his fall. Essentially, Stoick will likely die in the next five years either by a war with the Berserkers, assasination or by dragonfire. A Berk under Hiccup (if she gains power at all) will either be too weak to resist our growing advances or will cave to internal pressure. Under any or all of those circumstances, we win".

Grinning and impressed, Ryker looked his brother in the eye with admiration. "How long did you take thinking this up, brother?".

"A long time. It's another piece of the puzzle for our domination over all". Said Viggo with an air of satisfaction.

"All of them?" The larger of the two asked with an amused expression and a raised eyebrow.

"Our domination over all of them". Viggo replied, his smile broadening, knowing who Ryker was referring to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Stupid idea, stupid eel, stupid Hiccup for bringing the stupid eel. The looks the entire village gave her felt creepy and like everything had been turned upside down. The news that the chief's daughter Hiccup had put the Zippleback back in its pen reached Berk faster than Hiccup's own legs had and she had to contend with those stupid fucking expressions that the population stared at her with.

In all honesty, she'd rather have been brutally maimed or had just fucked up like she did with the last two dragons. Dealing with the new "confused" Berk was too much to cope with, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" was a pretty perfect feeling for her right now. She had enclosed herself in Gobber's forge with absolutely zero intention of even stepping outside for a millisecond before she was finished with fixing Toothless's flying apparatus.

Ugh. Even the kids, especially Astrid's little sister, were paying attention to her like she meant something and the start of a crowd had formed up near the shop-like entrance of the forge. She had ended up barricading it to gain some peace.

Peace and quiet was the way to go. Peace being drawings and sketches, ones that got increasingly complicated as she scavenged among junk weapons from a pile that should have been disposed of years ago, and quiet being the seconds between the steady beat of wielding a hammer and pounding slight adjustments in the pieces she was creating. Everything for Toothless had to be perfect or they'd find him hurt or worse with her handiwork littered around him in the cove and then she'd be in big trouble for aiding the enemy.

The enemy being a Night Fury that acted more like a rogue errant housecat with a serious need for cuddling and chasing light sources (which she had discovered earlier before dragon training). Granted it was pretty funny watching a supposedly feared predator jump and buttwiggle around the cove to catch a glint of light that she manipulated off a shiny piece of metal, but showing that to the mob from Berk wouldn't save Toothless. He might be harmless to Hiccup, but to the village of Berk he was the enemy and must be killed before he attacked them.

Which is why it was more important than food, sleep, or drinking that she finish his flight gear today. No mistakes, no cockups, no room for Hiccup time.

It ended up being far more simpler in the diagrams and in Hiccup's mind than actually building a saddle that was to be fitted from memory around the torso of a dragon that only she had ever been close to physically touch.

Leather, leather was needed. Enough for a place to sit her butt with a simple but strong tether that she could attach to her legs while in flight to prevent a repeat of what happened last time. Dangling on the tail of an excitable Night Fury that kept errantly turning direction like a dog chasing its own tail while flying at fuck knows speed through a forest was not an experience she relished reliving - however briefly that might end up..

Then there was the problem of the control levers that she would have to use in sync with Toothless's erratic flying. She could exert some control of the fin with her feet via a lever or so that would then link to to the tail section and then to the fin section, all of which would require more pins in place on top of an already damaged (but hopefully still flyable) scrap metal apparatus that was supposed to be Toothless's ticket to she'd work from there to convince the Night Fury that letting himself be controlled like a horse by a sickly girl would be a good idea.

Even then, moving this bloody experimental pile of metal, joints, and leather with a ship's worth of moving parts and complicated thingies would likely be a long and painful trip with a covert expedition through Berk and then the forest while avoiding suspicion on the way. And then it would still need to be bolted on and assembled on a potentially hinky living creature who would at least be curious about what was going on.

Still, at least it was the middle of the day and she'd have to time to reach Toothless while it was still light if she worked hard enough and skipped eating. Nothing she couldn't handle, even with some bruises and probably sprains from hitting the dragon with a distressed Night Fury and then forcing herself through dragon training.

She'd get it done, no matter what. Toothless had to leave Berk and then she could figure out what to do about injuries, an annoyed stomach, and an uncomfortably sudden public profile.

He wasn't hungry anymore, the barrel of fish from Hiccup earlier that day had resolved almost a week's worth of hunger. He'd had a grumbling in his stomach even before the attack on Berk and its fish and then being shot down had made things worse.

Now, he could be content, at least. Given the situation of being stuck on a hostile island filled with a population that killed dragons for fun and sport and with only a single little female for help he should be nervous, but he wasn't.

"Hey Toothless!"

Hiccup had shown him that the two species could be kind to each other. She had fed him and tried her best to help, she'd never gone back on any promises so far, even when battered this morning when she had impacted the ground and been bruised all over.

He did have his doubts when Hiccup came in sweating and stumbling through the familiar entrance, dragging the same apparatus that he had previously worn (and very uncomfortably too) on a makeshift sledge with even more stuff strapped to it.

"It'll be over, I promise. Just a little bit more." she puffed as she hauled the load closer.

Toothless did protest ,making growls and whines when the fin-like thing and all of its foreign and unwieldy scrapey thingies were strapped and buckled onto and chafed along his tail.

And then his midsection too, places were no dragon should be touched, more thingies were rigged up, tightened and wound around and then to top off the extremely weird and tight feelings around his tail, midsection and stomach, after a series of clicks and straps, some rope was tied around below his neck followed by adding a seat of sorts. Presumably the seat was for Hiccup who was humming and sticking her tongue out as she worked, clearly enjoying constructing and putting together her inventions.

Did she intend on riding him?

He wasn't so sure this would be a wise idea; he'd almost killed her earlier and...Toothless's heart wouldn't be able to take it if she injured herself again trying to help. She'd risked her life for him in a hostile place and kept him alive so he could be free, a debt he could never repay.

So he crouched down, adjusted himself as Hiccup lifted her skinny bones and climbed on top, her weight barely felt as she adjusted some things to be looser and some to be tighter.

"Toothless?" She asked, rubbing gently at his ears. Toothless let out a contented sigh in response and he could feel a smile radiating from Hiccup.

"You're flying today bud!"

Despite his reputation as the fastest and most powerful dragon besides the alphas and queens, Toothless purred at that.

And maybe he stomped his paws.

Just a bit.

She had taken him out of the hole in the ground that he defined his existence and world since he was crippled, he had been led through a forest with Hiccup leading, needing no rope and she never turned back to check if he was following. She trusted him implicitly and he repaid it.

She was excited, enthusiastic even, and her heart rate and body language jumped every few metres they got closer to Toothless' unknown flying destination.

Another rope was tied around his waist with the other end fastened around the stump of a tree trunk on the edge of a cliff, to hold them both in place as Hiccup urged him closer to the edge. Soon he stopped, the wind picking up around as Hiccup climbed on board and asked if he was ready to fly.

He replied with an excited stomp of his paws.

It was already difficult to see since the wind was constantly buffeting her face and it had already made her hair go weird; she'd need made to make a helmet afterwards. Evidently Toothless didn't need one, as his eyes were open and he was sniffing and looking at the invisible air currents.

He was excited about this, and she was too. To be able to fly even with a bit of restriction since neither of them wanted a repeat of last time so going to the safest spot where the wind could lift a dragon and with safe cover and landing spots behind was the best idea she could come up with until she could figure everything out, an ideal testing ground basically.

The saddle was rudimentary but it worked. The same could be said for everything that was made out of scrap and held together by hope, engineering, and whatever else she could lay her hands on. The foot lever couldn't be constructed in time so a simple hand lever would do; it did dig into her constantly and hurt a little but it was bearable for the moment, worthwhile.

She wasn't sure about how the tail would move so she had it set to two positions that she had seen Toothless's tailfin in, a raised one for slow movement and a halfway that she had seen from memory earlier this morning. If there were any more positions required, then she'd figure it out.

The wind picked up as they got closer and Hiccup lightly tapped Toothless and he replied by unfurling his massive black wings.

That immediately got them off the ground and she was technically flying; while she had done so earlier, this was much safer and better.

She put her arms out in sync with him and smiled.

"Holy shit!"

In response Toothless waggled his ears and she looked back to see his tailfin move to the mid position so she pulled the lever and the previous downthrust of the two tailfins now moved together and they rose higher in the air, the rope becoming almost completely straight instead as it held them in place.

This was fucking awesome, no wonder Toothless was so keen to get back in the air.

The Night Fury let out an excited warble and Hiccup fist pumped.

She'd done it.

Hiccup the weak, the one that had been looked down upon, had made a dragon _**and**_ a viking fly - together, on purpose!.

"More Toothless, let's get higher!" she shouted excitedly and lowered her body against his, nestling her head into the back of the Night Fury's head as he turned them in place, the two slowly rotating while hovering around the tree stump. Toothless had let his paws dangle in place and stuck his tongue out, letting out a presumably happy noise as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

That purr was adorable. And the sun was shining on them too.

She wanted more, to go higher. No, to soar above the tree tops and to see Berk from a place no Viking ever had.

"Higher Toothless, give me more!"

He obliged and they floated into the sun, for a brief glorious second they were one, bonded together. Rider and dragon who had touched on something beautiful and special.

And then the rope snapped, the tailfin buckled and they went flying backwards into a soft patch of grass that cushioned them.

Hiccup groaned ,slightly in pain from the impact as Toothless nuzzled her over concernedly His faint growls became a deep purr as she told him she was alright. He nodded in response and sidled over to investigate some long grass a few steps away.

She couldn't be mad; she succeeded in her basic objective and then some! An achievement that couldn't be boasted about to the other Vikings, but still - something that she could be proud of. It wasn't a weapon to be wielded in one's hands or a ship-sinking ballasta. It was something that helped others, and Hiccup felt strangely at peace with that.

She sighed and lay back on the soft ground, a more than a few pieces of that tall grass came wafting over to cover her, with some heavy footfalls and dragon noises coming from where Toothless had gone.

"Oh?" she asked.

The Night Fury was jumping around like an excited puppy in the grass, rubbing his nose into it,rolling back and forth, and having a good time like it was a drug.

Weird.

That grass was usually used as a mild pain killer in hot water with some leaves, it dulled the senses and made everything a lot more relaxing.

She hit herself mentally.

Toothless,a dragon, was obviously using far more than a single leaf and by the looks of it, it acted as a nip of some sort of him.

Dragon Nip.

Well, she had a suitable name for it now.

And a willing test subject.

Hiccup picked up one of the errant Dragon Nip pieces and crawled upright, then walked over to the cat-like dragon before tickling him softly in the torso and legs with the grass., The reaction was immediate, and Toothless adorably squirmed and shook pleasurably at the touch, like any domestic feline presented with a special type of herb.

He purred loudly and looked at her with big eyes that signaled contentedness in dragons, another thing that Hiccup would need to start writing down among the horde of fascinating information that she was encountering and learning.

Hiccup ditched the grass and ran her palm flat against the Night Fury's ears, directly caressing them as the dragon craned his neck happily, she ran her fingers down lower to his neck and Toothless responded with a loud sigh. Finally she finished at his neck and gave Toothless a soft scratch.

He responded by enthusiastically flopping on the ground and stretching out, begging for more of her softly touches.

She replied with more, as requested.

And after a few happy minutes together, Hiccup stood and pocketed some of that grass for emergency future use.

~~~~  
A/N

Sorry about the wait!

Reviews:  
No-one and ThisIsEpic, Thanks guys! Hopefully this will expand a bit more on the universe im attempting to create, we are almost done with the first movie or act one (about 3-4chapters to go), ill make it fun promise!

With thanks to the editors/beta readers.

Kayda-Starr ,Puffin777 and ASATanker


	8. PSA, coming out isnt dead!

Update!

So Coming Out isn't dead, I have a finished chapter eight ready to go and chapter nine is in the works, unfortunately my main editor has basically rolled a 1 on everything for 2020 so while I would like to release chapter eight as it is, it would be unpolished and I feel that doing so would be a disservice to the currently standard of writing that you expect from Coming Out. If you would like extra reading, the first opening set of chapters have been revised and edited! The same goes for Huntress which got a full makeover so I have actually done some work :P

If for whatever reason I am no longer able to work on Coming Out for reason, I will release the script (yes I made one) to give everyone closure, but be rest assured I have the summer off and my 2020 year as a student will give me lots of time off, so thank you to everyone whose posted, commented, liked, followed, I heart you all😊


	9. Double Sided (8)

Chapter Eight: Double Sided

~~~~~~~

Winter is coming. She could tell because last night came early and sunrise is later than it had been the previous day. All is darkness at first, then a small bit of light glimmers and struggles its way onto came and she stumbled to the arena flanked by the twins as she no longer trusts Snotlout further than she can throw him and Fishlegs's incessant rattling about dragons and that stupid book is too annoying. And just slightly jealous that his family can afford to give him the time and effort to teach him to read.

Even Hiccup is on time today, clad in her everyday garments with just a shield, battered clothing ,the usual wild look with half the forest stuck to her, and no axe (unlike the others, which provokes Astrid's suspicions, but she has bigger things to worry about). Yesterday was just a fluke and she is confident that she will be able to pull on top today and prove herself to the others, to Gobber, and to the relatively sizable crowd that had gathered at the arena's benches.

The sinking feeling in her gut tells her that they are there after Hiccup's incredible feats yesterday and not for Astrid Hofferson but she'll change that and their minds. She has to, after all, since there is no other option other than to press on and be on top.

She avoids Hiccup regardless and stands far away with the twins; the other two boys stand at an awkward distance, and Hiccup, well, Astrid didn't want to look in her direction.

For Astrid, Ruff and Tuff are the most socially bearable of the Berkians in their age range. Sure they are crazy, but they aren't as obnoxious as Snotlout with his ego or Fishlegs's nerdy rantings, and with Hiccup being...well, that doesn't need explaining. Ruffnut has proven herself to be a reliable teammate yesterday with the Zippleback, and between the both of them, Astrid was sure they can take Tuffnut as a third member if things go uncomfortable wrong. Ruff and Tuff also had an axe in one hand and a shield in the other, mirroring Astrid's gear, which makes the whole dragon fighting situation far more bearable.

"Your thoughts?" Ruffnut asks as Gobber enters the arena and slowly waddles over to one of the doors that held the dragon inside.

"Chickens!" Tuffnut grins. "Or maybe a horde of chickens, no, wait, dragon chickens!".

"Probably two dragons like before, probably one the Gronckle with the Terror?" Astrid answers, leaning on her axe.

"I guess so."

~~~~~~

She's half right;the wrong kind of half right.

Gobber is nowhere to be found.

He disappeared shortly after he set up the arena, which was a bunch of chest high wooden fences scattered around and flanked by a smattering of tall walls that the Nadder had stalked the student's through. Astrid and the other students are none the wiser, but she should have noticed and readied herself given the shock of yesterday's event, but she didn't. Apart from a few odd metallic grinding noises, they hear nothing.  
That's when the fucking dragons flew right at them. The familiar fly-like beats of the Gronckle's wings alerts Astrid and she reacts faster than most, immediately crouching behind her shield as she shouts for the twins to do the same.

Tuffnut rolls away and smacks face first into the wooden barrier which thankfully protects him from the Gronckles' near bullrush charge into the middle of the group.

His sister? Not so lucky, she is caught on one of the Gronckles' fat paws and has her helmet yanked, but her quick thinking and deft hands unties the strap holding it just in time before the now empty helmet careens off into the stone walls.

Astrid doesn't bother to think about the others, Snotlout is too bent on being a lone wolf, Fishlegs has likely pissed himself, and Hiccup...well, she dealt with the Zippleback yesterday.

Astrid has two roughly dependable warriors with her and she is good at multitasking.

The Gronckle came around again, its physics-defying, heavy, ungainly movement rocketing into another charge as it readies up a lava bomb.

Astrid racks her brain hard and remembers that time when her parents fought one off.

"Ruff, Tuff! Shield wall!" She called out and the twins were quick and near enough on their feet to slam the edges of their shields to overlap with hers. "Hold it!" Astrid grunted and kneeled, protecting her entire body as the twins followed suit.

The Gronckle's lava shot did nothing except produce a stinking metallic smell and loud ringing in the Berkians' ears as it flew over and slowly wafted itself in a circle around them, its beady little eyes staring blankly at Astrid.

"Semi circle! Ruff on the left!" Astrid barked as they stood up together and rotated in place, always having at least one shield in place to face the Gronckle, which fired two more shots at them, each one having negligible effect.

"Fuck yeah!" Ruffnut bashed her shield with her axe in celebration, Astrid joined her and rattled her axe against hers. Finally a victory, and a team-based one that the actual dragon fighting adults had used. That lifted her spirits.

The Gronckle buzzed away and started harassing Fishlegs by zooming back and forth at him repeatedly in a strange cycle, forcing him into a fetal position as the dragon slowly moved into a tighter circle. Was it toying with him? The damned thing wasn't attacking or spewing its lava.

Astrid huffed, her victory, no, her _**team's**_ victory over the Gronckle just made it harass someone else, and while she was happy enough that it wasn't being overly hostile, the notion of it simply being able to ignore her by instantly zooming across to the other side of the arena was… an insult.

"Where's the other one? There were two yesterday." Ruffnut muttered darkly and Astrid's skin prickled at that realization of sudden vulnerability and letting her guard down by watching Fishlegs cower.

"Nadder!" Snotlout cried out from the other side of the Arena, his voice travelling faster than his own legs as he shot up from behind one of the walls. He appeared just as a clout of flame filled the area he previously vacated, and the Jorgenson vaulted behind one of the barricades.

Fishlegs too picked the worst moment to shout out, his panicked screams louder and higher-pitched than before as the previously docile Gronckle turned aggressive again, spewing a lumpy bit of lava onto the ground next to him. Perhaps it was re-charging its shot limit?

Astrid grimaced and swore a colourful curse under her breath; she didn't have time to rescue both boys, and Hiccup was nowhere to be seen as a useful distraction.

She'd have to choose, either her full team on one dragon or to split up and deal with both simultaneously. The Nadder was the more obvious prize, but Fishlegs was a greater asset to Berk; his annoying brainy head would be needed.

"Ruff, Tuff, get the Nadder. I'll take the Gronckle."

Ruffnut scowled and grabbed Astrids shoulder. "Dammit Astrid, you can't take it down on your own!".

"I'll be fine, it ran out of shots so its slower now, save Snotlout from his stupidity and I'll join you, got it?"

"Fine"

~~~~~

Astrid ran at the Gronckle at full speed, her boots dragging up the soft gravel and kicking it out as she screamed at the harassing fat fly from behind. "LOOK AT ME YOU FAT FUCK, NOT HIM!" She bellowed, clanging the tip of her axe blade hard against her shield to force a distraction.

Its ugly head turned around and all of its features were clear, its stubby nose, wrinkled cheeks, and massive tongue.

She'd have thrown up if she didn't have a job to do.

She clashed her shield again. "Face me dragon!"

It did, slowly turning around and opening its mouth, revealing dozens of jagged meat-eating teeth and a nearly endless black esophagus.

She steeled herself and stared it directly in the eyes; if dragons were able to comprehend a challenge, this would be it. She'd have to be ready, quick on her feet and multi-task _hard._ Her mind raced through at all the idle comments her parents had ever made about fighting Gronckles.

They could be avoided.

They could be outsmarted.

But it's all down to luck, the damned things are armored, and while they're slow and ungainly, so is a fucking warhammer - and both have crushed helmets and heads before.

The dragon let out some kind of weird grunt, seemingly accepting her challenge, and it charged forward, ignoring Fishlegs who stumbled to his feet and then promptly fled in terror, leaving Astrid alone. Better that way, the boy was never cut out for fighting dragons.

Astrid nimbly stepped out of the way, her lighter spiked armor and its emphasis on only essential protection always gave her the advantage when fighting other Vikings, and truth be told, only the best and hardiest armor would protect the wearer from a dragon anyway and that type of armor weighed as much as a yak.

The theory went that dragons used their lung capacity for drawing shots, so kind of like running or heavy exercises. That if they exceeded their shot limit (in the Gronckles case six) the dragon would have to either retreat or exhaust itself to keep firing.

And that Gronckle had already used up its shots against her and twins. She could hear cheering coming from somewhere but refused herself to be distracted, action first and being the hero later.

It sluggishly turned around and rotated on its axis, falling back a bit as it struggled to loose out a poorly aimed lava shot that missed Astrid by _an entire metre._

The theory was right, she'd just have to exhaust it out now and if luck held then whatever shots it did sprew at her would be less powerful.

She dropped her shield arm down and dodged out of the way nimbly, thanking the gods for her light armor. The dragon seemed to pant and it fired again, hitting part of the arena wall. Not long now. It then did something unexpected, not something that a wild beast would do. The Gronckle opened its fat mouth, made to fire to Astrids right and she dodged left, before she could realise her mistake it wheezed out a shot and she barely managed to block in time, the force of the impact winding Astrid. The liquid lava so much unlike the previous solid sizzled and melted into the structure of the wooden shield, making it useless and heavy, a direct and successful hit, one that had claimed the lives of many vikings when their only form of real protection failed.

She threw her useless shield at it in angry retaliation with the resulting impact knocking it to the ground. She should have felt joy at taking down her first actual dragon but, nothing. A wild dog attacks in the same pattern, a shark always comes from below and a Gronckle, this fat fly anticipated what she would do and provoked her into a response to its advantage.

She tunnel visioned at the worst time, she didn't notice the Nadder that broke through the twins encircle, their warning shouts of "ASTRID LOOK OUT" fell onto death ears as she only reacted, slowly when it came too close and threw her unconcious onto the ground.

She didn't hear any cheering for her, only for Hiccup.

~~~~

They came on slowly, proud silhouettes on the horizon that filled out as individual ships from dark spots to filling the view in a slow single file as each ship came into Berk's port.

Something was wrong when the eyeball was able to discern further details.

Battered ships, missing wooden beams and planks. Hulls that would need reinforcement or complete overhauls altogether. The first casualties ashore were worse than usual, the product of bad weather and a storm that, according to the wounded who could speak, was terrifyingly powerful, having flipped longboats in the air like a toddler tossing its toys and broke the boats' backs.

Gobber was not looking forward to the repair work. Even with the help of the shipwrights on the island and nearby friendly colonies, it could take weeks or months to patch up the thousands of holes and that was looking at the just first ten ships that limped into port. There would be more to come in the next few hours or perhaps days.

Stoick was fast ashore as well. His flagship seemed to be relatively unharmed, and the giant red-bearded shape of the man passed among the village's heavily-laden Berkians who were excitedly telling him things and yet he frowned with every single conversation.

Stoick talked angrily, gripping his axe so hard that if the haft wasn't reinforced then it probably would have broken there and then.  
"These fucking idiots would make us abandon our island and relocate to a less dragon-infested island. I told them that there's only one direction left to go, that's where the dragons have got to be hidden but of course they didn't listen! Vikings died for this, and at least fifteen ships are lost but they would throw that away!" the chief ranted to Gobber, who stayed silent, knowing that the best thing to do when Stoick was like this was to simply let him vent.

Stoick finished eventually after cursing the Hoffersons for losing half of their ships due to a fuck-up on the Ingermans' navigators. He cursed them, too. Even after having cursed both of them, he had tried his best to stop the two prominent families from attacking each other on the way back with progressively violent means.

And both of them would be in the upcoming council meeting.

"I hate this, Gobber, everything would have been so much simpler if Val was here to keep people in line." he sighed and admitted.

"Aye, but she's gone forever, all you can do is help Hiccup and she'll end up stronger than all the others." Gobber mused.

"Hiccup?" Stoick perked up.

"Aye, Hiccup"

"Some of the villagers were telling me that she was gone, what happened, Gobber?" Stoick's eyes narrowed and it was clear to Gobber that Stoick was thinking of the worst case scenarios. Just what did those villagers tell him, Gobber thought.

"Well, she's gone to.." he began.

"Gone? Thor above did she-?" exclaimed Stoick, now alarmed.

"Nay, Stoick, she's gone most afternoons., Who can blame her though? She's got half the village as fans from her recent performance today."

Stoick to his credit took the sudden turn of events well, slowly processing them. "Alright, how did all this happen?" he asked.

"No clue. She was doing as expected for the first two training sessions, but everything changed with the Zippleback yesterday! Damned things are terrified of her, and the Nadder just dropped when she touched it."

A very audible sigh of relief escaped Stoick and his shoulders slumped from the previous horrifying image of his daughter being killed or injured in the ring. "And the Loki wood?"

"It works, she's managed to deflect just about everything in dragon training so far."

Stoick nodded some more, pausing as he seemed to be making a mental calculation.

"Right"

"Right, what?" asked Gobber.

"Who took out the Gronckle then?"

"Astrid, fine display of teamwork there"

"How so?" asked Stoick, curious.

"She coordinated the twins actions and copied the tactics we use, a pretty fine display to watch if I'm being honest about it." said Gobber.

"So we have a prodigy that knocks dragons out by touching them and a possible replacement to fill a team leadership role?"

"Aye"

"And one last thing, Stoick. Hiccup took that Loki wood and turned it into an axe and shield, damned shield took the dragons' attacks without a scratch."

Stoick gripped his axe again and raised it at the looming building of the great hall in which the council meeting was going to take place, where all Berkians and their allies of any neighbouring small islands were expected to attend.

"Now I've got a reason to go willingly." he grinned and strode forward.

~~~~~~

Gobber sent word to some passers-by to find Hiccup and then joined his chief.

She had sat there above the coast looking as the fleet returned to the harbor. As word had gotten around that the fleet was utterly decimated and at least a hundred Vikings died, she frantically looked around for her parents' ships and only a few had come back out of the many that had sallied forth.

Mom and Dad were there in the great hall, having rushed to it, sitting near the top of the arranged bench and table hierarchy. According to which, first went the chief, council, elders and then clan leaders, her family were in the fourth bench and she dragged Brenda along with her. Astrid's little sister gripped her hand tightly as they navigated through the increasingly growing horde of Berkians.

Brenda had asked her if she was feeling okay earlier. Astrid did not respond and just grunted instead. Her armour felt a little heavy after being worn all day and those sharp knee pads were_ not helping_.

Fights were starting, more than usual with families ripping at each other's throats for slights imagined and real; her parents were locked in a vicious argument with the Ingermans and she spotted Fishlegs standing awkwardly off to the side.

Thankfully they weren't hitting each other. Yet.

She only brought Brenda around because she needed somebody with her, the disastrous humiliation she felt at being utterly beaten by Hiccup was a shame on her and upon seeing her parents, she needed her little sister's hand as an anchor point. Mom and dad were clearly more interested in something else since they stormed off the pier and headed to the hall before they had even seen their daughters.

She had watched them, hidden.

"Astrid, where are we going?" Brenda's little voice said from behind and Astrid pulled her closer, not wanting to lose her in the mass of people. "Just up ahead, Brenda, there's a free bench."

They found it after pushing past an older couple, with Astrid sitting Brenda down on her lap, since little sister was a lot smaller and only came up to her chin, giving the prospective shield maiden a clear view of what was going on in front.

Nothing was happening so far, just Stoick sitting alone on his chair with an empty one reserved for his family. They might as well have taken it out as Hiccup was never interested in the meeting if she was given a choice.

Some more members of the council came in; unlike her, they were given space and ample room. There was Mildrew the annoying old fuck who complained about everything, the usual richer families who owned multiple ships and islands, and everyone in between.

Astrid sighed and rested her chin on Brenda's head, wrapping her arms around her little sister and breathing in her soft and sweet smelling hair. Evidently the ones who took care of her had far better beauty products than Astrid did.

She'd grow up to be so pretty, the fairest maiden in the land, she wouldn't need to have mom and dad's approval for anything and if they tried, Astrid would take her away to a place with no care or worries.

"I love you Brenda" she choked, as if saying those words were suddenly difficult and different from all the goodnights and times they spent playing together.

Brenda squeezed Astrid's fingers. "I love you too."

Astrid gave a soft smile and cuddled her little sister tight.

The meeting started eventually, Stoick's huge girth practically brushed even the larger Vikings aside like a rock dropped in a pond, his booming voice forcing every Berkian that couldn't see him give way and his status as chief ,well, that didn't need explaining.

He sat at the head of all of the tables atop a mighty throne, an empty smaller chair beside his that was always open but never filled by his daughter.

Was mother holding that stupid fucking Krasen that was meant for her to be carted off like a pig for slaughter? Astrid squeezed her fists so hard the knuckles were going to pop out if she kept at it.

"Citizens of Berk, my friends and loyal comrades. It is once again time for our council." Stoick released himself from the confines of his chief-chair and rested his bearpaw-like hands on the table, even from way back in the hall there was no mistaking his body language or intentions.

Astrid listened intently, shoving her previous bout of rage into somewhere dark and deep.

Stoick nodded as he continued, picking up a keg of mead and flexing his shoulders. "First of all, my heartfelt thanks and praise for the Vikings who embarked with me on the hunt for the damnable dragon nest, it is my pleasure to have served with you and I'm sure everyone will share in my deepest sympathies for those of us who lost a fellow or family to the sea". Stoick bowed his head and the higher ranking members of the council did too, a few murmurs of discontent sporadically surfaced in the crowd but only whispers. Astrid didn't know the whole of what happened, other than what she had caught on via listening into hushed conversations and the inevitable fights that sprung up.

Stoick continued, reiterating the need for unity amongst the Berkians, that they and their island allies needed to stay together in the face of next year, that this coming winter would be survivable if they worked as one and that due spring Stoick would lead his tribe and destroy the dragon threat once and for all.

She managed to make it through the economic speeches, the construction of new ships based on Stoick's own, the respiration from the Berk treasury to the families that lost material and manpower. Astrid spied a pained glance at her parents, they didn't even realise she or her sister were there, instead her mother clutched something familiar, something that Astrid had seen when families were going to announce their daughters and sons eligibility for marriage.

If she wasn't feeling sick at being first out in the Arena and letting Hiccup bag the glory then she would be now. It was like being offered as a piece of meat at the butchers, that there were now eyes staring at the target on her back making her feel vulnerable and exposed in the open, heart rate did not help either, quickly matching and then beating the anxiety and apprehension of what her parents could do or were going to, why was it suddenly so fucking difficult to think? Ever since that stupid Gronckle got her knocked out by the Nadder she had been feeling off, weird.

Brenda was wriggling now, was she too tight? Astrid released her arms, chest convulsing quickly, she had to get out soon and just, not be here in this hall full of vikings and parents.

She took a deep breath and steadied herself, she'd taken down that gronckle on her own, faced wild dogs at just ten and held her own in fights versus vikings twice her age, she could deal with stupid feelings and panic.

The door opened, the _great door_, people around her didn't notice but Astrid did, every single little bump on the table or shuffled movement on the other side of the hall forced her senses to be hyper aware.

Someone else noticed, a booming voice with a axe head the size of a small child thundered and then clapped, calling for applause amongst the room that reminded Astrid of how badly she fucked up in the ring. "HICCUP!, THE CHAMPION OF THE ARENA, MY DAUGHTER RETURNS!"

Astrid didnt even wait to or want to hear the cheers or see the raised kegs in the skinny girls honor, the empty hole in her heart whispered that she should have been the one in that position.

She did leave Brenda in the care of the twins though.

"Hiccup! Hiccup! Hiccup!

She didn't look back, just ran and didn't stop for ten minutes.  
~~~~~~~

"As to conclude the meeting of the high council, the fleet will be reinforced and then eventually replaced in its entirely by the new ships on a three to one basis, we'll also offer them to our allies for free in return for unrestricted access to the loki wood that the new fleet will rely on as well as lumber, ore and training their own shipwrights" With the aid of chalk Stoick traced a protective line around Berk and a number of neighbouring islands, his council members nodded as they drank their last kegs of mead, some of the older members such as Gobber and the annoying but necessary Mildew yawned at having sat in place for the past three hours but it was their duty to attend such sessions.

At his place next to Stoick, his status of being the brother of the chief and uncle/advisor of the future (hopefully) chief Hiccup, Spitelout spoke up after some deliberation. "I gather there is a plan to pay for all of this, the family coffers and Berks have been bled dry by the recent actions and we'll need to figure out expenses for this new fleet of yours brother"

Stoick understood why his brother asked, Spitelout's job aside from acting as the second war chief of Berk was to ask the difficult questions before everyone else could, therefore allowing the two brothers to control the narrative and conversation, and if Spitelout wasn't able to, Gobber would.

"Hiccup" Stoick replied.

"Hiccup?" One of the council members asked incredulously.

"Aye, her unexpected performance in the arena has led myself and Gobber to believe that we treated her designs too hardly, and thats perhaps youthful..spirit was to blame for the mishaps rather than any serious fault"

"Hiccup?" Stoick asked his daughter , having to shift his neck at an uncomfortable position as she sat next to him but below his shoulder. "Can you draw designs for them by tomorrow?

Hiccup hadnt said anything since she entered, having just sat by Stoicks side and listened for the past few hours. "Theres blueprints in the warehouse you guys put my stuff in"

"Fair, so its sorted then. Hiccups designs will be sold in the Northern Markets to go towards rebuilding the fleet. Anything else?"

Mildew, the prickly and eldest member of the council opened his mouth to Stoicks dismay, the man never had a good word to mention. "So let me get this straight, Hiccup, your daughter. The island screw up and disgrace is to be suddenly allowed to sell weapons to good and reputable buyers just because of one or two sessions where she managed to convince a dragon not to kill her?!"

"He has a point Stoick" Spitelout muttered under his breath.

Taking a deep breath and making sure to compose himself to not undermine his own political and personal power in the chamber, Stoick ignored the insult thrown his way for having a "disgrace" for a daughter. "No other candidate in the history of dragon training has been able to disarm a dragon without weapons like Hiccup has, and shes done that to a Zippleback, Nadder and a number of Terrors ,Mildew"

Mildew moved to speak again but Stoick interrupted him. "As chief I have full confidence in my daughters abilities, it's true that she has been through setbacks but she has my full support and thus that of the council"

"Fucking nepotism" Mildew scowled ,Stoick shot him a icy glare while Spitelout grunted.

"He'll be a problem"

Stoick huffed back in agreement.

~~~~~~

Sorry it took this long, theres some mistakes here and there but there'll be a 2.0 version at some point, and we're finally moving along with the plot! Only a few chapters to go to wrap up the events of HTTYD one and then we get on with the good stuff.

With thanks to.

Kayda_Starr  
Puffin77  
ASATanker  
Evi Vix


End file.
